


Quiet Rebellion

by Sofia_books134



Category: Phan, Phandom, Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF), youtube - Fandom
Genre: 1980s, AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Angst, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexuality, Canon LGBTQ Character, Canon LGBTQ Male Character, Cute Dan Howell/Phil Lester, DAN AND PHIL - Freeform, Dan Howell and Phil Lester Are Teenagers, Dan Howell/Phil Lester Fluff, Depressed Dan Howell, Dom Phil Lester, Gay Phil Lester, LGBTQ, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, POV Dan Howell, Phan - Freeform, Phandom - Freeform, Sub Dan Howell, Top Phil Lester, YouTube, YouTuber Phil Lester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-02-10 11:39:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 51,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12911163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sofia_books134/pseuds/Sofia_books134
Summary: An aesthetic, 80's, Phan alternate universe. Dan is narrating his last summer before going off to college, which he's spending with long time friend Phil Lester. Ok, well maybe they're a little bit more than friends. Friends who make out sometimes. And, to Dan, a friend that he's sort of fallen in love with.Dan struggles with coming to terms with his sexuality and being an overly emotional "blue boy" in America in the 80's. He has enough heart ache and angst to fill the world.





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning: There will be homophobic slurs throughout this story!! There will be LGBTQ+ stereotypes that are NOT TRUE and there will be bullying! I will put more specific trigger warnings for certain chapters, but please if you think that that will really bother you, I want you to at least brace yourself.

_Quiet Rebelion_

 

 

Playlist

_BLUE - Troye Sivan_

The Louvre - Lorde

WILD - Troye Sivan

FOOLS - Troye Sivan

LOST BOY - Troye Sivan

TALK ME DOWN - Troye Sivan

Do I Wanna Know? - Arctic Monkeys

Lost In The Supermarket - The Clash

Summertime - My Chemical Romance

Sign of the Times - Harry Styles

 

Aesthetic

Polaroids

Book Shelves

Soft Carpets

Late Night Talks

1980's

The City

The Suburbs

 

Daniel Howell

  
  
  
Phil Lester

  
  
  
Description

An aesthetic, 80's, Phan alternate universe. Dan is narrating his last summer before going off to college, which he's spending with long time friend Phil Lester. Ok, well maybe they're a little bit more than friends. Friends who make out sometimes. And, to Dan, a friend that he's sort of fallen in love with.  
Dan struggles with coming to terms with his sexuality and being an over emotional blue boy in America in the 80's. He has enough heart ache and angst to fill the world. How will it fit into an au?

  
(You're going to have to ignore the errors, like how Crash Bandicoot didn't come out until after when this story takes place, or simple things like that that I have no control over. Sorry, its gonna happen, I'll try not to make it happen often. This story will also include homophobic slurs.)


	2. Introduction

Phil Lester. Dan's best friend. The town's local gay. Those was usually the thoughts that came to people's mind when they thought of Phil.

Daniel Howell. Phil's best friend. Quiet and shy - only loud when something has to do with big opinions. That was what came to mind when people thought of Dan.

Well, Phil wasn't even gay, he was bisexual. But in some random New York suburbs in the 80's, not many people were willing to accept that. Other than Dan and Phil, of course.

People could make fun of Phil all they wanted - and trust me, they did - and he would just give them the middle finger and walk away. Maybe that was what made Dan like him so much.

Or maybe it was that Phil was the only person he'd ever met who could beat him at Crash Bandicoot (even though Dan still usually won).

Or maybe it was that they'd been best friends ever since they were six and Phil and had moved into the neighborhood.

Or maybe it was because of that first kiss. The one that ended everything for Dan. When they were thirteen and Dan was staying over at Phil's house and they were talking with a movie playing in the background. It was probably Star Wars, but could have just as easily been some sort of indie horror film since it had been when Dan was going through the whole 'indie horror film' phase. And then Phil randomly and unexpectedly leaned in and kissed Dan. Just like that. He'd changed Dan's life forever and all he seemed to care about was the refill on popcorn. Like he'd been totally unfazed. Completely nonchalant.  Dan thought that maybe he'd dreamt it, except for the next day Phil had done it again.

Dan couldn't put his finger on it. Maybe it was all of those things. Maybe it was none of them. Maybe it was just  _Phil_. And he couldn't help but like him so much because it was Phil Lester. And he didn't know how the rest of the universe didn't like him just as much as Dan did.

Or maybe it was that he wasn't supposed to like Phil. Not only because he was a closeted eighteen year old about to leave for college after the summer's end, living in a homophobic town surrounded by other homophobic towns. But also because he just wasn't supposed to like Phil. They were supposed to be friends. Friends who made out sometimes, but still just friends. Phil had set that preface when they had been newly minted fourteen year olds and they were kissing way more often than normal friends. He'd said that they'd just be friends as if it would be easy. And so far, it seemed like for Phil, it was easy. For Dan, not so much.

Maybe he was just too emotional. Maybe he was too sentimental. It would explain all the polaroid pictures he kept around even if they sucked. He couldn't let go of things. He always got too involved. He was always too much. To him, it was like he felt everything ten times more than the rest of the world did. And he hated it. What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he just be like Phil? Why couldn't he just not care so much about everything?

The phone started ringing and Dan instantly picked up up from its home on the kitchen wall, reaching from his seat at the counter.

"Howell residence, this is Daniel speaking" He always answered the phone formally, just as his father had always yelled at him to do. He used to just answer the phone and immediately ask if it was Phil on the other end. Apparently that meant World War III in the Howell household.

" _Shut up, its just me_ " Phil was whispering into the phone.

" _Why are you being so quiet?_ " Dan asked, suddenly whispering for a reason unknown to him.

" _Well its the first Saturday night of summer break, 10:30 PM. That means your parents are out for the weekend visit to New York City that they've been planning for and my parents have finally fallen asleep. I'm about to sneak out through the window but I wanted to make sure you'd be home first._ " Dan could tell he was speaking close to the phone from how his voice sounded.

" _Of course I'm-_ " He realized that he was still whispering and spoke normally "Of course I'm home, it's me. What else would I be doing? Partying?"

"Life is too short for your sarcastic remarks, Dan. I'm coming over now"

He heard the dial tone and hung the phone back up, going to unlock the door and make popcorn. This was how it always went on the first night of the summer. One way or another Phil would find a way that they'd both be free (he planted the NYC trip idea in the Howell parents' brains months ago) then he'd come over at some random time in the night and they'd go through the same schedule they always did on this day.

Dan heard the door open then close.

"I smell popcorn" Phil stated, walking into the kitchen in his staple bright red flannel and Gray Matter t-shirt with jeans and his burgundy converse high-tops.

"Well its the first day of summer, isn't it" Dan noted "What else would I be doing but making the popcorn for our official annual Movie Night."

"Ah, I remember the day when we started this all. We were thirteen and you were just getting into horror films." Phil reminisced while Dan took the popcorn out of the microwave. "Your Frankenstein phase was my personal favorite" He commented.

"Oh god, don't remind me. The month that I got into horror film makeup." He almost literally face palmed, as he did every time that remembered these cringeworthy incidents.

"If only your mom knew the amount of times that we used her eyeliner to draw stitches on your face." Phil grabbed the bag of popcorn and went to put a second one in the microwave. "You loved that though, every time, without fail. Thirteen year old Daniel Howell was obsessed with makeup. I wonder how that would boad with the kids at school" Phil jokingly said.

"Whatever, you loved it too." Dan teased back, sticking his tongue out.

"That I did"

"I'll go grab the blankets and the projector set-up from the basement, then we can be on our way. And you're going to have to leave your bike, again. I'm telling you, someone's gonna steal it one of these days." Dan said, walking out of the kitchen to get to the basement stairs. The basement, the scariest part of the house. At least it used to be. Dan had made enough memories with Phil down there that it wasn't that big of a deal anymore. With the ghost of past experiences floating around it didn't seem nearly as unwelcoming.

He rummaged around a bit before finding the huge comforters that they always used, and the bed sheets. He grabbed the projector equipment and carried it all up in two trips. They had a newer version, but it was still boxy and heavy and he couldn't carry it with all of the blankets.

Phil had made the four batches of popcorn and was ready to go by the time Dan got to the kitchen with all of his stuff.

"Ok, I brought all the candy in my backpack, and the movie. Tonight we watch, for the horror film nostalgia, The Shinning." He pulled out the box with the filmstrip. "This things heavy, so lets get going."

They ended up loading the blankets and Phil's backpack onto his bike and he walked it beside Dan, who carried the projector. Luckily, the hideout was a short walk if they cut through the park to Sabine Ave and down Hathaway Rd. Finally they reached the outskirts of the little forest in the center of the suburbia that they called home. The only mildly interesting place for miles. If you stood in the center, you could pretend that the only thing near you was trees and not the reality of the boring super-mart and Ruby's Diner and the rows of identical houses.

As soon as they got to the middle of the forest, where they was a little clearing in the trees, Phil started setting up the white sheet. To do this he had to balance his bike against the tree trunk and stand on the seat to reach a high enough branch, and then do the same the with tree next to it. Dan had set up the projector and film easily and was now just laying on the blankets watching Phil struggle to not fall and possibly get a concussion.

"Phil, one of these day's you're going to forget to put the break down on the bike before you do that, and it'll all go to hell." Dan said though a chuckle as Phil wobbled on the unbalanced bicycle.

"I'm living life on the edge" He commented, finally finishing tying up the corner of the sheet to a branch and hopping down. "It's all worth it for a crappy version of The Shinning that will inevitable have huge subtitles because I always get the wrong one by accident." He went to sit down next to Dan, where he'd probably hog all of the blankets, and unzipped his backpack. Three Twirlers and a Hershey's bar fell out. He'd filled the bag to the rim, as always.

"And one of these days we're going to get diabetes from this ridiculous amount of sugar." Dan commented, pulling a Kit-Kat out of the book bag. Phil just laughed and mixed the M&M's into the huge bowl of popcorn.

"Still worth it." He stood up to start the movie, which was already projecting the first scene onto their make-shift movie screen. "Oh, I also brought some beers. Stole them from the fridge, my dad won't notice. He has a horrible alcohol tolerance and doesn't even like drinking, he only buys it to try to seem more manly. If he does notice, he'll just be thankful that its gone." He pulled out a glass bottle and handed it to Dan. It wasn't warm yet, but it was no longer cold. Better than Dan would have expected.

That was when he noticed a little paper and bag sticking out of the corner of Phil's backpack, caught in the zipper.

"Phil! You got that one British candy, Maltese's? Where did you even find these, you know I love them more than life its self!" Dan ripped open the little paper bag that had the chocolate themed candy. They rarely ever had them on movie night and whenever they did it was a secret how Phil had gotten his hands on them. Dan had a sneaking suspicion that it was sent from his grandmother who still lived in London, where Phil moved from when he was a kid.

Dan had always liked the idea of living in London, even though Phil always said that it wasn't all that great.

"You know I'll never tell you. And of course I got them, this might be the last summer that we get to do this." Phil said, somewhat sadly, sitting himself down next to Dan and grabbing a handful of popcorn.

"We should run away to London." Dan said randomly. Phil looked at him, amused.

"Why would we run away to London? And how?"

"Well, its a hypothetical situation, but because who wants to go to college? Well, I'm sure some people. I guess if you're doing what you like. But I don't want to study law. And I know that you have no clue what you want to do, you're just making it up as you go along. Don't try telling me otherwise, I know you better than you know yourself. If we could just run away to London and do nothing and eat Maltese's all day, that'd be perfect. We could get simple jobs. I could be a photographer and you could be a model or some shit." Dan said, paying no mind to the quiet movie, which had captions over half of the screen. Phil always accidentally got the one with subtitles.

"With what money, Dan, with what money" Phil asked, pulling a cigarette from his back pocket. Dan had grown so used to the smell of cigarette smoke that he only associated it with Phil now, which instantly made it a pleasantry.

"We could steal our parents credit cards and get lost in the airport." He said, holding his hand out to take a drag. Phil looked at him questioningly. Dan rarely smoked, and when he did it was just taking a hit from Phil's. He was always careful not to get addicted, and he never did. Ironic, considering that he got addicted to anything else that he even mildly liked. Dan nodded and Phil handed it over. The only reason he liked it was the aesthetic of blowing smoke. Especially when he did right in Phil's face. Especially when he took polaroid pictures of it. Especially when he did both of those.

"It would't really be stealing, since they'd otherwise be paying more than whats on those cards for us to go to college anyways." Phil noted, taking the cigarette back. He leaned over and kissed Dan, his hand drifting to his curly hair, guiding him in the kiss, as he did so often. After a few minutes he pulled away and replaced Dan's lips and tongue with the cigarette, his hand resting on Dan's thigh. "Now let's watch this movie and point out stupid things and quote the actors"

And with that, they were silent.

 


	3. Poetic Mornings

Dan woke up with his comforter just barely covering him and Phil's legs intertwined with his.

After the movie they'd walked home (Well, Phil pushed the bike, which Dan sat on, carrying the projector and backpack.) and instantly fallen asleep in Dan's bed.

Ok maybe not instantly, but eventually, after a few goodnight kisses, they had. And now Phil was hogging the covers, like he always did, and had his arm around Dan, like he always did.

"Phil" Dan's voice cracked from weariness. Phil didn't wake up.

"Phil Lester" Dan shook Phils shoulder slightly. There was a groan and Phil rolled onto his back. Dan sat up, knowing that he was now at least half awake.

He pushed Phil's fringe out of his face and kissed him, sucking on his bottom lip. That woke him up, like it always did.

"Morning Dan" His voice was sleep riddled, and his eyes still closed, but he was awake.

They laid in bed a little longer before Dan got bored and wandered downstairs, bringing down the little stack of pictures that he'd taken with his polaroid last night. It was one of his favorite things to do, look back at pictures from a perfect night. No, it wasn't like reliving the moment or anything cheesy and stupid like that. He just liked having reminders that it had happened at all. 

He had only taken seven pictures, as he'd forgotten to bring extra film this time. The first one was just of Phil watching the movie at his favorite part. His eyes were lit up from the color of the scene, and his mouth hung slightly open in anticipation. This one would go in the drawer with the good pictures.

"What are you up to." Dan heard Phil say groggily, walking into the kitchen and ruffling Dan's already messy hair.

"Just looking at the pictures we took last night." He splayed them out on the counter.

"Well you took most of them. I only took that one. And that one. Ok, and that one. I took three, you took four." Phil pointed out the one he'd taken of the four empty beer bottles laying on the blankets at their feet, the one of Dan laughing and covering his eyes with the king sized Twizzlers pack, and the one of Dan resting his head on Phil's shoulder and smiling blindly up at the camera.

"We're both really not that great at photography." Dan pointed out, seeing as most of the pictures were blurry from their unsteady hands. They hadn't gotten drunk, they'd each only had two beers. They were  just two unsteady people.

"No, I think we're great. The blurriness is on purpose, its an art style, its supposed to mean that... life is out of focus." Phil improvised, smiling down at Dan.

"Ok, whatever. That was the cheesiest thing I've ever heard, but whatever. I'm gonna start making the pancakes now so-" Dan was cut off by the phone on the wall ringing. Phil reached to pick it up but Dan quickly beat his hand away and picked up the phone.

"Howell residence, this is Daniel Howell speaking."

_"Is Phil there? He didn't come home last night. I assume he's with you, but I just wanted to check."_

Phil heard his moms voice without Dan having to say anything, and he took the phone form his hand.

"Hi Cath, its your son." Phil spoke into the phone, leaning his back against the counter. Dan started pulling out ingredients to make pancakes while Phil was on the phone.

"I didn't sneak out, Cath, thats such a boring way of looking at it. I just... accidentally sleep walked out the window and then Dan kidnapped me. You can't possibly blame me for being kidnapped." Phil said conversationally. Dan laughed at Phil's creativity. Phil could basically do whatever he wanted and come up with the worst excuses and his parents would still do nothing about the situation. They preferred to just pretend like they didn't have two sons, but instead just Martyn - Phil's older brother. Or at the very least that they were both as perfect as the first child. Phil usually seemed fine with it, since he could get away with practically anything.

"Be home by six? Cathrin, thats ridiculous and you know it. I'll home at six and if no one picks up I'll assume that means that I can stay at my kidnappers house again tonight."

"What do you mean 'What if someone does pick up'? You know damn well, Cath, that you guys are going to be in the middle of dinner, and you have your 'no calls during dinner' rule. I'll be staying over at my kidnappers house, its technically confirmed."

Dan heard the dial tone that meant that Phil's mom had hung up.

"She's mad because she knows I'm right." Phil said, matter-of-factly, sitting on the stool at the kitchen table. He pulled his pack of cigarettes out from his back pocket and slid it to Dan, who was measuring flour across the table.

"Take those from me, cigarettes don't taste good with pancakes but if I have them I won't be able to help myself." He stated dramatically.

"Yeah, and my parents would murder me if it smelled like smoke in the house. My mom's a nurse for lung cancer patients." Dan said back, taking the cigarettes and putting them in his pocket in turn. 

"That whole thing is a myth anyways." Phil said, leaning forward on the table.

"What's a myth?"

"The idea that cigarettes give you cancer. It's not true, my dad told me." He said, waving off the 'theory'.

"Phil?" Dan looked, bewildered, up towards Phil.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up." He laughed. " You sound like a two year old. Also, don't you disagree with everything your dad says, always?"

"Mostly, but not when he says things in my favor." Phil improvised.

"You're ridiculous."

"I know, but it makes me interesting."

~~~

Once Dan had finally made the pancakes he put two on a plate and gave it to Phil, who was on his second tea. Phil was obsessed with tea. Dan always said that it had to do with the fact that he lived in London up until he was seven years old, but Phil always insisted that he didn't start his tea obsession until he was eight. Dan didn't believe a word of it.

"Oooh it smells great." He lied. Dan was horrible at baking anything and they both knew it.

Phil walked up to him, still at the stove with a pan over the burner, making his own pancakes.

He put one hand on Dan's hip and one of the counter, kissing his cheek.

"I'm sure they'll be great this time. Nothing like the salt fiasco." He commented, still not having taken a bite. Dan didn't blame him. He was probably scared to.

"Don't remind me" He whined. The salt fiasco happened last time Phil stayed over and Dan had tried making pancakes. Salt and sugar looked a lot alike, it was probably a common mistake. That didn't make it taste any better, though.

Phil distracted Dan with a kiss and then slipped his pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket slyly. Dan blindly reached back and put his hand over Phil, parting the kiss.

"No. You know the rules, not in my house. Plus, I thought you said cigarettes tasted bad with pancakes." Dan took the cigarettes from Phil and placed them down on the counter without looking away from his face.

"They taste good with tea though." Phil replied sheepishly.

"Take it outside."

He did.

Dan finished making the pancakes quickly and went outside to get Phil. It was hot out, even though it was early - Dan didn't like sleeping in. The heat made summer his favorite season.

Phil blew out a mouthful of smoke and Dan found himself reaching for his camera before realizing that he didn't have it on him. 

"Come inside soon, I finished the pancakes."

Phil nodded, looking out into the minuscule backyard. A tall, fragile fence surrounded it. Dan had hated the small backyard when he was young. Now he didn't know what he'd do with all the space if he had Phil's backyard. He didn't go outside much. Mostly on these hot summer days Phil would come over and they'd burn the days away, killing time that adults always said they should be taking advantage of.

Phil followed Dan inside only a few minutes after he'd gone outside. They ate the pancakes and made fun of their photography skills, looking at the pictures they took yesterday. The pancakes were mediocre. They didn't taste bad, but they didn't have much taste at all.

A moment of silence came as they both ate, a lull in the jokes. It was a good one though.

Dan looked at Phil, his black hair that they dyed once every other month. His lips that were always so bossy when they kissed. His blue eyes that rested right now, but went crazy all too often. He felt the familiar pang in his chest of knowing he could never really have him. It wasn't a realistic thing to long for, even if Phil felt the same way.

He looked down at his pancakes as soon as Phil started turning his eyes away from he window and towards Dan.

"I wonder what deep thoughts we're supposed to be having right now." He commented. "Two eighteen year olds on a poetic summer morning. We're probably supposed to be doing something smart, or thinking about something smart. And all I can think of is that one Liu Xia quote," He paused for dramatic effect and pulled a cigarette out of the pack sitting on the table. Dan gave him a warning look, but he just flailed it around instead of lighting it.

"Sitting here cross-legged, lucid as god, I light a cigarette."

"Thats a pretty stupid quote." Dan commented. Phil shrugged.

"Better than anything I could write."

They both knew that wasn't true. Phil was amazing at poetry, though he didn't put too much time and effort into it. It was always beautiful.


	4. The Aquarium

The Louvre - Lorde

_"A rush at the beginning_

_I get caught up, just for a minute"_

 

_"Drink up your movements, still I can't get enough"_

* * *

 

"Where to today, Danny?" Phil asked, walking backwards on the sidewalk so that he could face Dan, who was nervous that Phil would walk into a tree or something. It wouldn't be the first time.

"I don't know, I'm not good at these things, you know that." Dan replied, wincing as Phil most dropped his paper cup full of steaming hot tea.

"How about we visit the Met?" Phil suggested finally turning to walk beside Dan instead of in front of him.

"With what money?"

"We can pretend to be twelve. Twelve and under get in for less."

"Phil, we're eighteen. We lost the ability to pretend to be twelve by the time we turned sixteen."

"I don't know, you were a pretty scrawny sixteen year old."

"Shut up." .... "And, I know."

"We could pretend to be students."

"We don't have student ID's."

"We could take some money from our parents."

"Again, what money?"

That was how most of their conversations went. Phil wanted to leave and be spontaneous, and Dan was the voice of reason and pessimism. Of course, Dan just thought he was just a realist, not an optimist or pessimist.

He was a pessimist.

And Phil was just... restless. And bored. He was always begging the world for a hopeless rebellion. He was always begging Dan to follow him, which he usually did. Who was he kidding, he always did, and probably always would.

Having a best friend who wants more from the world than they're given is mainly fun. They'd impulsively jump on the train to New York City and stay for a day or two. They'd get in one of their parents cars and drive further than what they could pay gas money for. They'd make messes all over town and create new problems everywhere they went. For the same reasons, it was tiring. Especially for a realist. And especially for a pessimist.

"How about we just go to the movies or something?" Dan asked. He remembered seeing that they were going to play Superman II today. That could be fun.

"You did not just go from heading into the city to staying here and watching a movie" Phil dramatically stopped in his tracks.

"I told you I'm not good at this!" Dan confessed, taking a sip from his coffee.

They were walking around their neighborhood going in no particular direction. It was still early so not many people were out. It was one of Dan's favorite times of the day. Late at night and early in the morning - when no one is up but you. Granted, it wasn't that early anymore, but since it was the second day of summer most people were either sleeping in or gone.

"Clearly" Phil mumbled, continuing their walk. "We can just go to the city and walk around and shit." He proposed. "We wouldn't have to worry about people seeing you and me, like, together or anything."

"That sounds nice, but you know me. I'll still worry." Dan noted.

"Ugh, you're such a worrier. Stop worrying for just two seconds and just kiss me!" Phil griped.

"Not here. We're in our own neighborhood. Someone could recognize me and tell my parents, I'm not risking that" Dan chided.

"See, that's what I'm talking about with the worrying! Plus it's not like we're actually together anyways." He complained.

Don't remind me, Dan thought. "Let's just do whatever you want. I'm down for anything that makes sense and is possible." He said instead.

"I don't know what I want! I want to leave this shitty suburbia and travel everywhere and write stupid poems and make out with people!" Phil threw his arm up in frustration.

"And this is where my London plan comes in handy." Dan said pointedly.

"Been there, done that." Phil took a sip of his tea, pausing to think. "I want something new. But jesus christ, nothing is ever new enough! I mean, goddamn, we're right next to New York City and still are in the middle of nowhere with this godforsaken town" He sounded frustrated. That was also inevitable to happen when you had a best friend who wanted more from the world than they were given. Frustration sets in time and time again.

"Well in the first six and a half years of your life you couldn't have explored all of London. Just think about it, once you're about four, you don't remember anything from earlier than that time in your life, so thats only three actual years that you spent there. But half of that can be taken away for sleep; thats one and a half years that you consciously spent living in London. And even then, you were a toddler. You couldn't have experienced that much. I say that the London plan is valid and stays a viable option for us to lean on."

"Very well, very well." Phil paused, turning and walking in front of Dan once again. "But I still want more." He turned again and waltzed away ahead of Dan. They were already almost back to Dan's house by now anyways, so he didn't bother catching up.

~~~

As soon as Dan got to his house, only a few paces behind Phil, he realized that his friend had locked the front door. This wasn't an isolated incident. Every time that Phil got to Dan's house and Dan wasn't home, he locked the door. It was a power move.

Dan when around the back - Phil always forgot to lock that door - and got in through there. He heard Phil's footsteps dashing up the stairs and rolled his eyes fondly. He followed the noise up to his room and opened the door just as Phil was sitting down at his desk.

"You do realize that this is my house, right?" Dan asked, closing the door behind him.

"I might as well live here too, I'm over here so often." Phil replied, absentmindedly opening the top drawer connected to the desk and pulling out a piece of lined paper. He scribbled some stuff down then put the paper back in the drawer. He did that sometimes. Phil would randomly write down some poetry or prose, then leave it for Dan to read later.

"Just because thats true doesn't mean you get to lock me out whenever you want."

Phil ignored Dan and got a second piece of paper out, writing something in big letters at the top then underlining them. Dan couldn't read it from where he stood, but figured that Phil would explain soon. He threw himself down onto his bed and closed his eyes, laying on his back.

"Ok, what are some things that we absolutely have to do this summer? Before we go to our different colleges and move away and shit." Phil asked, turing the spinny chair to face Dan.

"I don't know." He replied, shrugging. He was never the one to come up with these plans. He was the one who turned down bad ideas and reluctantly agreed to good ones.

"Come on, stuff that we can only do here and now. Whats something that we won't be able to do next year? Or the year after? Shit that we can only do this summer." Phil had his pencil at the ready, as if Dan could actually produce an answer to this.

"I already told you, I don't know. I'm really not a creative person, you know that."

"Thats not true, I happen to know that you can be super creative. It just depends on what you have to be creative towards." Phil said thoughtfully. "Ok, I'll re-phrase the question. Whats something that will only be fun if we do it now, this summer. Or at least that will be most fun if we do it this summer."

At first Dan couldn't think of anything. What would be fun now that would seem less appealing just after a year? Immature stuff. High school stuff. Teenager stuff.

"You know that aquarium down past Sabine Avenue? The one across the street from the diner?" Dan asked, finally coming up with an idea. Phil nodded, bringing his pencil to the paper.

"What about it?" He asked, already sounding bored. Aquariums alone were pretty boring, after all.

"I've always wondered what it would look like after it closed."

That got Phil's attention.

"Trespassing in the aquarium, now we're talking." He wrote it down. "Come on, keep the ball rolling."

It only took Dan a few minutes to come up with the next thing, and when he thought of it he sat up instantly and looked at Phil, who appeared excited for whatever he was about to hear.

"Gay bar."

"Now thats what I'm talking about!" Phil hurried to scrawl it down as a bullet point. "I knew you had it in you. Daniel Howell; Rebellious homosexual." Dan just blushed and fell backwards onto his pillow again.

"I don't know about the rebellious part, I'm more of a worrier." He couldn't deny the second part though.

"Why didn't we think of that years ago?" Phil asked, sounding considerable perplexed.

"Not old enough to pass as twenty one. I mean, I'll probably never look old enough to pass as twenty one but if we head in to the city and ask around I'm sure we can find some place thats bad at keeping minors out." Dan noted, staring at the ceiling.

"I'm friends with a genius" Phil muttered under his breath, earning a laugh from Dan.

"Ok, more, we need more. What else is there to do in this godforsaken place?"

"Not much." Dan commented.

"We can't have that kind of negativity, come on Dan, have some confidence in my ability to muster up great escapades." Phil scolded, leaning back in Dan's chair and putting his feet up on the grey desk.

Finally, after a moment of neither of them coming up with anything else, Phil spoke up.

"Oh my god, thats kid at school, Charlie, totally owes me a favor from sophomore year! I mean, it was a long time ago, but I'm sure he remembers. I've been holding onto this favor for a while, so we'd better come up with something good." Phil did this. Every time anyone owed him anything he was overdramatic about it and milked the situation for all it was worth. He was obsessed with people owing him favors.

"Charlie? Isn't that the kid who drives the ice cream truck every summer?" Dan sat up again, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "What does he owe you for?"

"Lets just say there was a party that I crashed one night when we'd had an argument and he was there and confused, so I set him straight." Phil paused "Poor choice of words, actually, but whatever."

Dan just rolled his eyes. "Ok, well, what good is a favor from him going to do us?"

"I don't know, think." Phil thought about it for a while before it looked like something came to mind.

"Oh my god! It's perfect! We'll borrow the ice cream truck!"

~~~

After a few more ideas (Most of which Dan didn't approve of, but agreed to do anyways.), they decided they'd make their way from the top of the list to the bottom. and right at the top was the aquarium. It closed at 10:30 PM every night. The perfect time for sneaking into places.

"Make sure you're quite" Phil advised Dan, looking up at the fence he was about to climb.

"Yeah, no duh." Dan sarcastically replied, grabbing onto the chain-link fence and pulling himself up. "I could use a boost here, Phil."

"One second, let me get my flashlight, its too dark out here." He fumbled around his small backpack for the flashlight. Dan didn't know why it was taking him so long to find it considering all he had in there were journals, pencils, Dans polaroid camera, and a single damn flashlight.

"I don't know why you're making this so dramatic by making us use the back door. Theres no fence around the front, we could've just walked right past the side of the building." Dan whispered, looking out towards the two-story aqua museum.

"There are security cameras there. Plus, its cooler this way." Phil's voice was muffled, as his head was half way in his backpack.

"Just hurry up." Dan was starting to feel stupid, climbing over a fence to get into the worlds most boring and plain aquarium in the world. And he was starting to get anxious. They hadn't planned very well. But, as always, with the anxiety came an air of excitement. Ok, maybe not always, but whenever he was with Phil (which was almost always anyways).

"Got it!" Phil said, a little too loudly, triumphantly raising his flashlight in the air.

He turned it on and nearly blinded Dan, shinning it directly at his face.

"Oh, sorry!" He quickly moved the flashlight away and set his backpack down. "I'm gonna have to sling the backpack over. I can't scale a fence and carry that shit at the same time."

He held the flashlight between his teeth and put his hands out to help Dan over the fence before he pulled himself over as well. It was a tall, chain-linked fence with little bits of barbed wire at the top. It wasn't necessarily put up to keep people out of the vicinity of the aquarium, but since the back of the building was facing the small wooded area, it was to keep deer from intruding. Dan found it ridiculous that they were climbing a barbed wire fence when they could easily just sneak through the front door. But that was Phil, making everything more then it's supposed to be.

Phil had strewn his jacket over the barbed wire so that they wouldn't get cut when climbing over it. But, being Phil, his hand slipped and he now had a small cut across his palm.

"I brought band-aids." Dan mentioned, reaching into the back pocket of his jeans.

"Of course you did" Was all Phil said before walking off to the back door, without taking the band-aid. Dan scrambled to catch up with his quick strides, simultaneously trying to be quiet and as least noticeable as he could. For a 6 foot 2 gangly teenager, that was near impossible.

"Phil, jesus, wait up!" Dan whispered when he got to the three cement stairs leading to the double-door back entrance. Phil was already trying to door nob.

"It's a standard lock. I can pick it with a bobby pin, as I'd predicted." He pulled what Dan figured was a 'bobby pin' out of his pocket and started messing with the lock on the door.

After a minute or so, Dan started getting nervous and rushing Phil, like usual.

"Calm down, I've almost got it." Phil reassured, giving the pin a few more twists. Dan heard a quiet click and Phil stood up straight. "Ok, that either unlocked it, or broke it for good." He whispered, looking at Dan and smiling before opening the door with ease.

Dan didn't understand the science behind it, but he walked in behind Phil anyways, closing the door as slowly and quietly as he could.

As they walked through the door Dan saw the lack of security that he had expected. It was a sucky aquarium in a sucky town that never got a tourist in its life. They probably couldn't afford any kind of security. But still, as they stepped through the darkness, not daring to turn on the flashlight, their sneakers against the floor sounded like earthquakes in the absolute silence.

They walked as close to the walls as they could. Dan's eyes finally started adjusting to the darkness just enough so that he could barely make out Phil's silhouette. He noticed Phil reaching into the pocket of his hoodie to grab his flashlight when suddenly another light source exploded from what must have been a janitor closet or something of the sort.

Dan froze, not unlike a deer caught in headlights. He figured that that was it and now his parents were going to kill him and he'd go to jail and all sorts of unreasonable shit like that, but before he could think much else Phil grabbed his wrist and somehow silently yanked him behind one of the huge columns in the aquarium.

Dan screwed his eyes shut and grabbed Phil's hand, flattening himself against the small tiles of the column. He felt Phil squeeze his hand and he opened his eyes and turned his head to see Phil putting a finger up to his lips, as if Dan didn't know to be quiet. Then he slowly moved his hand to point to the glass of the section of the aquarium that looked like it had eels in it. At first Dan was confused, but then he saw what Phil was talking about. They could see the source of light in the reflection of the glass.

Someone stepped out of room that had the lights on, holding a mop and bucket. He was a middle aged white man, slightly overweight with a full head of curly hair. He started whistling The Beatles and mopping the floor without even bothering to turn any lights on other than the one inside the mystery room behind him.

After what could only have been a minute of Dan assuming that his heartbeat was loud enough to alert the man of their presence, Phil tapped his shoulder and motioned to his ears. At first Dan thought Phil was loosing his mind - something that often came to mind when hanging out with Phil Lester - but then he realized what he meant and looked to check the mans ears. Surly enough, he was listening to his walkman with headphones on. To be fair, they were barely noticeable under his brown afro.

Dan finally breathed. He couldn't possibly hear a heartbeat with headphones on.

Suddenly, in only one more minute, the mans whistling escalated to full on dancing and singing (not very well, on that note), using the mop as a microphone. Now his song had moved onto Elvis's Can't Help Falling In Love.

Dan could barely hold in his laughter, and saw Phil struggling too. But when the man's voice suddenly went s far off pitch that it sounded like a cat, it was enough to make Phil burst out into uncontrollable laughter. Dan didn't last long after that either.

The man instantly pulled off his headphones and Phil fell out from behind the column, clutching his stomach and trying to catch his breath through his laughing. The man's face turned bright red and he dropped the mop.

"You're not supposed to be here!" His voice wavered, though he was clearly trying to sound intimidating. Dan stayed behind the column but didn't bother trying to stop his laughing.

"Oh my god, you should've heard yourself. Jesus christ. Ok man, listen, I won't tell if you don't. I'm not trying to break anything, I'm just here with my friend, the one you can hear from behind the column. We'll let you do your job in peace if you let us go upstairs and hang out, and no one has to hear about any of this. Sound like a plan?" Phil negotiated, holding his hand out. The man, who seemed to be trying to restore his dignity, didn't shake Phil's hand but nodded and pulled himself into his full height - not that it was that impressive.

"Fine." He said quietly. "Just, go" He quickly turned around and retreated back through the door labeled 'Staff'. Phil clicked on his flashlight before the man could close the door all the way.

He looked at Dan with a wide grin.

"That was priceless." He waited for Dan's snickering to cease before telling him to grab the backpack, which he'd left at the door (incase they had to make a quick getaway) and follow him upstairs.

They'd been there enough times in the day to know where the stairs were to the top floor, which was one big open room with walls entirely made of thick glass and the same white-tile columns and floors as the first floor. Dan remembered that the upstairs mainly held the jelly fish, but also had some other smaller fish and a small tank with a baby shark that had a missing fin. It had been his favorite thing in the aquarium when he was a kid.

As soon as they got up, Phil went for the light switch by the door that read OFF LIMITS FOR VISITORS in big bold letters.

"Oooh, look at these. One switch says regular lights, one says blue lights, and one says scuba lights." He looked at Dan and shrugged. "What'd you think?"

"Scuba and blue, both."

Phil made a dramatic scene of turning off his flashlight and preparing to turn on the other lights, like it was a ceremonial thing.

He turned on the lights and the room was illuminated in low, dark blue light and lights behind the glass lit up in blue as well, shining on all the jelly fish and all the boring fish and Harold the shark.

It instantly looked one hundred times cooler than in the normal lights. The jelly fish looked like they were glowing, and the water looked like it was filtered with the blue colors. It was more impressive than Dan expected.

He scanned the room, looking out into the tanks surrounding him in wonderment. It was beautiful.

He turned to Phil to see him with his mouth hanging slightly open looking at all the jelly fish, flailing around and going about their normal lives. Just swimming in their own pee.

"Phil," He called, stepping out further into the circular room. "This is actually kind of cool." He mentioned, at risk of sounding stupid.

Phil just nodded in agreement and handed Dan his polaroid. He already knew that he'd want to take pictures right away.

Dan started snapping shots of everything. Of Phil, of Harold, of the columns, of the jelly fish, of the boring and small fish. Everything. Mostly Phil, but still, everything.

"I wonder why people use blue as a sad color, because to me it just seems fascinating. I mean, look at that. It's the perfect color so that you can't even see where the tank ends. It looks like it just goes on forever. Fuck, I can't think of anything poetic to say. I just love the color blue." Phil said, walking up to the glass and putting his hand on it.

Dan took a picture of Phil's reflection on the glass before leaning his back against it next to him and setting his camera down.

"Not a bad idea, then, hanging out here?" Dan asked, looking forward at Harold. He felt Phil's hand on his cheek and closed his eyes, turning to kiss him.

"We should dance." Phil said bravely when they parted. Dan rolled his eyes.

"With no music? What a ridiculous cliche." Dan hated cliches. Phil loved them, though. He thought they were poetic, even when they were stupid.

"Then let us be cliches, and we can get lost in a sea of other people doing exactly the same thing."

Phil also loved romanticizing everything. But who could blame him, he was a poet, romanticizing things was his job.

Phil stepped away from Dan and twirled in a clumsy circle, reaching his hand out for Dan to take it. Which he did, reluctantly.

Phil was a terrible dancer when it came to this kind of dance. He was great at dancing at parties, when it came to just jumping around to the beat of the song. But this kind of dancing - with someone else, with your hands on their waist - this kind of dancing, he wasn't so good at.

Dan, on the other hand, had been forced to take ballroom dance lessons by his mother when he was nine. Phil showed up every time Dan had to go to a class for it, for the sole purpose of making jokes about all the other people there, and to see how embarrassed Dan always was. But then Mr. Howell found out where Dan and his mother were spending their Tuesday afternoons and said that only fags danced like that unless there was a wedding involved. Dan just laughed about it now.

"This is ridiculous" He said, chuckling and blushing as he took all the right steps, even when Phil stepped on his toes.

"You're ridiculous" Phil accused, constantly looking down at the floor to try and avoid Dan's feet.

"Well so are you!" Dan pointed out.

"Oh, but thats what makes me interesting, isn't it?" There he went again, with his romanticization. He could probably make death sound beautiful. No, that would be pretty easy. He could probably make being Harold the shark sound beautiful. Dan was tempted to challenge him but decided to just watch Phil be a horrible dancer and trip over his feet instead.

Phil almost fell for the third time and just laughed, his tongue slipping between his teeth like it always did. Dan felt overwhelmed once again. A feeling that he was accustomed to. A feeling that Phil Lester came with a warning label advertising its presence. A feeling of awe and of beatitude. A feeling disguised as luck. Lucky for knowing Phil Lester. Lucky that Phil Lester knows you.

This feeling was inescapably chased by anxiety like lime after a shot.

This was why Dan could only think overwhelmed. It worked for both the initial thoughts of Phil being amazing, and for what followed it. Dan was constantly overwhelmed. So much so that he figured something ought to be wrong with him. After all, the pain in his chest couldn't possibly be normal.

Dan, try as he might, could never clear his mind as people always suggested for anxiety. It was impossible. So instead he rested his head on Phil's shoulder and tried to breath normally. A task that was hard enough for a normal person, if they were dancing with the person a person like Phil, who couldn't help but be so perfect in all the wrong ways.


	5. Play Pretend

    

Slow Town - Twenty One Pilots

_"I wanna go away, way,_

_cause things are too fast now"_

 

_"We're going too fast, fast, save us"_

 

 

* * *

 

They ran back from the aquarium to Dan's house in a mad dash, even though no one was chasing them. Sometimes Dan felt like that was the best way to go about things. And Phil  _always_  thought that was the best way to go about things.

And of course, even though it was summer in New York, it started raining.

It rarely rained where they were in the summers. Especially in June. They got the classic New York rainfall in April, but it was always dry as hell in June.

But of course it started raining, and Dan wasn't sure that it wasn't coming from Phil's power of loving cliches.

Phil twirled in a circle and looked at Dan, his features barely readable in the darkness, even though they were only separated by a few feet of space. Phil reached his hand out, Dan instantly responding, lifting his arm towards Phil. It was like a magnetic pull, he didn't even have to think about it. Dan just gravitated closer to Phil, always. Phil used this to his advantage.

He pulled Dan in and kissed him, his hand firmly on Dan's lower back.

"You're so great." Phil whispered, smiling giddily, his eyes closed. Everything that he did, he did it with giddy.

Dan just blushed and moved away, walking forward.

"I don't know why you think so. No one else seems to share you opinion." He didn't say it with self hatred or embarrassment, Phil knew this, he just said it because he was always amazed at how amazing Phil seemed to find him.

"Well they should." Phil skipped to catch up. "You're the coolest person I know. You always beat me at Crash Bandicoot, you take great pictures, you know how to dance, you say interesting things. And you're way hotter than any of the other guys around here, that too."

Dan chuckled. They'd had this discourse before. Where Dan thought he was ordinary, and Phil thought he was extraordinary.

"Not counting you" Dan added.

"Of course, not counting me." Phil said sarcastically, sticking his hands in his pockets and walking beside Dan with a jump in his step. Sometimes he seemed manic, just in the way that he moved and walked and talked. It was part of his charm, though. That stupid charm that  Dan could never resist.

They walked like that through the woods behind the aquarium, rain now pouring from the sky, until they were sopping wet and had almost reached the end of the forest, which was only a block away from Dan and Phil's neighborhood.

Dan shot a side glance at Phil, catching him trying to push his fringe into place and miserably failing. And all he could think was how tragic it was that no matter what the situation was, Dan would always think Phil looked perfect.

He could be crying with puffy eyes and a red nose and he'd still look perfect.

He could be frowning and annoyed and bitch and he'd still look perfect.

He could be waiting in the rain for two days, his hair a mess, soaked to the bone, and he'd still look perfect.

The tragic part wasn't even that he looked perfect in those situations. He  _didn't_  look perfect in those situations.  _That_  was the tragic part. It was that even when he didn't look perfect, Dan thought he did.

And what was even more deplorably tragic was that the first thing that came to Dan's mind when he thought of this tragic situation was that Phil could easily turn it into the poem of a desired situation.

Dan thought back to a time when they had both recently turned sixteen and Phil had shown up in Dan's bedroom window, knocking on it as if there were no parents to accidentally wake up.

Dan, in a frenzy, had opened it and rushed them both out the front door so that they wouldn't wake his family.

At first, when Phil started talking, he was just really confused. Then Phil mentioned that he'd stolen pot from Dan's childhood friend, Chris. He went through a phase where he sold pot in the park for low prices, but he was really bad at it. He gave up on that after three months.

But Phil had already taken some without paying and had smoked it and was now standing in Dan's driveway, stoned as fuck and sixteen.

Not a lot of what he was saying was very put together, since Phil had always been someone to get off their face way too easy and had weird reactions to that shit, too.

He just kept quoting Beat Generation authors.

For example, he'd said "But its October and getting much colder in the nights" quoting Jack Kerouac's On The Road. And then also Allen Ginsberg with "I saw the best minds of my generations destroyed by madness".

Dan just kept trying to interject with the fact that it wasn't October but Phil just shushed him and quoted Jack Kerouac again "My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them"

It was rather confusing for both of them, but Dan just let Phil crash at his house after they walked around the neighborhood until he'd at least partially sobered up.

So they ended up in Dan's bedroom at two AM and Phil was just crying and freaking out, saying that the government was against them all, and that he was stupid and wouldn't amount to anything. Two very unrelated things, but it was what it was.

Dan kept telling Phil that he was perfect and he wasn't stupid and that he would be successful and have a great life, but nothing was working. So of course, then Dan started crying because it was what he did best. Even was if wasn't high, he was just a cry baby.

The only thing he could think to do that calmed them both down was playing music on his record player. Yes, a real record player from the sixties. His mom had kept it around from her childhood. The only record she had was of Elvis's. Blue Hawaii.

So Dan just put it to a random song and laid down on his bed next to Phil, both of them in hysterics.

With the soft melodies of the song Blue Hawaii (which happened to be the first song on the album "Blue Hawaii", what a surprise), they quieted down. But after the song faded to nothing and Dan stopped the record player, Phil was still in a weird mood.

They stayed up the rest of the night, talking about all the deep shit they could think of.

Dan laid his head on Phil's chest, staring up at the ceiling with Phil twirling his messy curls around his fingers.

And Phil kept using the quote "You don't have to torture your consciousness with endless thinking". Dan wasn't sure where it was from, other than that it came from the beat generation. He was sure, in that night, that Phil would have made a horrible Beatnik.

Because Phil loved to play pretend.

When they were young, Phil would come up with games where they were pirates, or pilots, or (one time) patients in an insane asylum.  _Most of the time_ it was what all kids did at that age.

But Phil never grew out of it. He still played pretend everyday. He pretended like things didn't bother him. Like he didn't care. Like it didn't matter to him that he thought he didn't matter. Dan knew otherwise.

Dan knew that he cared a lot. A lot more than most people. Phil cared intensely about how things would turn out for him. How things would turn out for Dan, too.

Dan always pegged himself as the cry baby. The over thinker. The boy who worried. That was even his fathers nickname for him when he was little. "The boy who worries". But the truth was, Phil was like that two. He just preferred to pretend than to actually deal with it.

Not that what Dan was doing could qualify as "dealing with it". No, what Dan did was more like "suffering with it" than "dealing with it". He still preferred it to pretending, though. Not the he'd ever been any good at pretending, either.

Phil was very good at pretending.

He had the whole town tricked into thinking that he didn't care.

He had the whole town tricked into thinking that he didn't feel that much.

He had the whole town tricked into thinking that he did cry just as much as Dan.

He cried just as much as Dan. He just cried in private.

God fucking damnit. They're a bunch of nihilists, aren't they?

~~~

"Hey, Phil?" Dan rolled over onto his stomach, reaching his hand across the bed to see if Phil was there without actually having to open his eyes.

No one.

But there  _was_  a warm spot on the bed where he'd been.

Dan sat up slowly and breathed in. Yup, the window was open. He could smell the flowers that he mother re-planted every month because Phil kept knocking them over in the middle of the night.

Dan wasn't disappointed. He figured that Phil would leave in the night. Mr and Ms Howell were getting home early in the morning and probably wouldn't want to see their son in bed with the gay best friend. Not the best way to kick off the summer.

He stood up and stumbled to his desk, opening the top drawer. It was almost a reflex - he didn't even have to remember seeing Phil slip the note in there the day prior to know that there was probably one in there.

He used a whole piece of paper to write something in small hand writing in the bottom corner. He knew that always annoyed Dan.

_"You know, there was this one book a read where this poet said something along the lines of 'A sure-fire way to experience happiness is reliving that of which others have felt happiness for. Re-discover their adventures. Re-write their poems.'_

_Well fuck that shit. Lets get up and write our own poems, Daniel Howell."_

He chuckled. Phil always knew how to make things exhilarating. He could take a normal summer and twist it and turn it and paint it and mold it until it became the best three months of your life. He could take a regular poem and scuff it up and toss it around and bend it until it was something beautiful. He could take a boring quote and move it around and spin it and churn it until it meant something powerful.

He could take a person who has nothing special about them really and talk to them and fill them with words and emotions and tears until they become someone like Dan, who's heart was always on the brink of over flowing. It as funny how he could just do that like it was nothing. And then he thought he was nothing special.

Phil was very wrong, according to Dan. He was everything special. He was everything right in the world. He kept everything balanced.

And he was everything special.


	6. Star Flashbacks

Dots and Dashes (Enough Already) - Silversun Pickups

_"Heat filling up my cheeks_

_Not exactly what you'd think"_

 

_"I'm already wondering 'What am I?'_

_I've already learned a bit of sin_

_Enough already, let me in"_

 

* * *

 

"Daniel?" Dan's fathers voice rang through the house. He sounded like he was in a good mood. That was always better for everyone.

"Yes?" Dan called down. "I'm up in my room." He shoved Phil's note back into the drawer and ran down the stairs.

"How was the trip?" He asked. His mother was taking her jacket off and hanging it on the coat rack.

"Wonderful." She said at the same time as Dan's dad said "Traffic" They looked at each other and Mrs. Howell rolled her eyes. Dan's dad was a pessimist where his mom was an optimist. He figured that was what made him a realist. Anyone else would tell you he's just a pessimist and got it from his dad, though. The dominant gene; misery.

"Really, it was fun. Tell Phil that we're grateful for the idea. The city is so alive this time of year." His mother said, walking into the kitchen and putting her purse down on the counter.

"How has your weekend been?" Dans mom inquired, kissing Dan's forehead.

"Ok. I hung out with Phil. We just walked around." He paused, adding "We checked out the aquarium down by Sabine Rd., too."

"Really? Isn't that place kind of pathetic? We took you there when you were a kid and you always got bored." Dans dad said while shuffling through the mail that dan had left for them over the days they were gone.

"I did  _not_. And the place was fine." Dan replied, getting himself a glass of water. He hoped his parents would leave him alone soon, before his mom asked the inevitable question. But of course, no such luck.

"Did you get a girlfriend while we were gone?" She asked jokingly. It'd become a kind of tradition. Ever since Dan hd turned fifteen, his mom had been waiting for him to start dating, supposedly, a girl. Whenever she and his father went away for the weekend or on business trips, she'd ask if he was finally in a relationship.

"No, mom." Dan answered in his trademark grumpiness.

"Leave the poor boy alone, Mary. He's focusing on school work, like a young man should. He'll have plenty of time to worry about girls when he's gone off to college." Dan's father usually swooped in with this kind of logic. It still didn't stop his mom from asking, every time.

"Yeah, you should bother Adrian with questions like that when he gets home from camp, and just let me focus on school."

"Yeah yeah yeah." Mary waved it away. "Just go off to your room to be antisocial like always, Daniel"

He rolled his eyes and went up. She wasn't wrong.

~~~

Dan thought about calling Phil over to watch a movie. Usually they watched movies either in the cinema near their neighborhood - which was so small that it only housed two theaters - or in the woods. But every once in a while they'd watch one down in Dan's basement.

He walked over to his bookcase. The top shelf was reserved for his favorite videocassettes, all in alphabetical order. The first one he saw was Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. It was Phil's favorite Star Wars movie out of the three. When it came out he and Phil had had a huge discussion about which was better, the second or "the original", as Dan liked to call it.

Dan argued that 'the original' was better because it was the first and it introduced them to the whole series.

"But the second one," Phil stated, "Is all about uncharted territory and Han and Leia escaping while Luke travels far and wide searching for Yoda. So much cooler."

"But the original," Dan demanded, "Has so many good memories along with it. It'll always be the movie that introduced us to the series, no matter how many more they make. The first movie will always be groundbreaking." He was very passionate about the cause.

"But there are more technological advances in film with The Empire Strikes Back." Phil would say.

At which point Dan had to argue that they themselves had made better memories watching the first movie than any they could ever make watching the second. Phil couldn't argue that.

 

~~~

 

Dans parents were out of town and had told him to watch his little brother Adrian. Thirteen year old Daniel Howell, however, told his parents that he was't responsible enough yet to take care of someone else in the house alone ('what if someone breaks in? I won't be able to protect him!'). So that landed Adrian with the young couple next door to be babysat, and Dan with the house to himself.

The first thing he did was call Phil, who gladly snuck out and came over to watch their favorite movie. Star Wars. They'd seen it a billion times.

Dan's basement was always freezing cold so they brought as many blankets and sheets as they could, tearing them off of Dan's bed, Adrian's, and his parent's. Every blanket and pillow in the house was theirs now.

They'd sit right in front of the couch, but not on it. For some reason this had always been the tradition. It was a sucky couch anyways. A futon.

And right there, in the middle of the movie, Phil decided it was the right time to tell Dan that he was moving.

 

_Dan crossed his arms and shrugged his shoulders.  
_

_"I mean, I guess it's not the end of the world." He was still upset. Thirteen year old Dan was always upset._

_"Dan, stop pouting, its not that big of a deal. We're just moving down the street a little!" Phil said, both of them completely ignoring the movie going on in the background by now. It was Star Wars._

_"Not that big of a deal?! I won't be able to cross the street and be at your house anymore! Thats a huge deal!" Dan knew that he just sounded like a child throwing a tantrum by now, but he didn't care._

_"I'm moving_ down the street _. You'll just have to walk a little further." Phil put his hand on Dan's shoulder, but Dan shrugged him away, arms still crossed, face in a pout._

 _"Why don't_ you _walk then."_

_"Fine." Phil shrugged, eating the last of the popcorn._

_And that was that, they just watched the movie in silence. Well for about one minute, anyways, before Dan spoke again._

_"How can you be ok with this?! You're house being right in front of mine, it's always been like that! Plus, all the stuff we've done there. We_ know _that house!" He turned to face phil, sitting cross legged. Phil gave up trying to pay attention to the film and turned be sitting opposite of Dan, cross legged as well._

_"We'll make new memories." He countered._

_"But it's_ that _house. That house is_ your _house." Dan insisted, pulling the blanket towards him._

_"It wasn't always my house, and it won't always be my house." Phil retorted, pulling some of the blanket back._

_"But if you're any further we won't be able to communicate with Morse Code at night from our windows." Finally Dan felt like he had a logical argument._

_"We can create other traditions in my new house." Phil had already thought of answers, of course._

_"We won't have your tree house any more." Dan noted._

_"It was old and breaking anyways. We can make a new and bigger one."_

_Dan just made a weird, frustrated noise and uncrossed his arms just to cross them again. He tried to stay mad instead of sad._

_"But, Phil..." He trailed off. He already felt his voice getting weaker. "What if you don't want to hang out with me as often?" Dan was looking down, talking to the design on the blue blanket._

_"What'd you mean?" Phil lowered his voice, matching Dan's._

_"I mean... what if you get tired of having to walk over to my house, or my parents don't let me go to yours anymore because its too far, or something. What if not having the morse code or the tree house, you just get bored of me." Dan could feel Phil's eyes on his curly mess of hair. He had to get it cut soon. He tried not to focus on how hot his cheeks felt._

_"Dan," Phil reached his hand over and put his hand under Dan's chin so that e'd look him in the eyes. "Thats ridiculous. Who else am I going to hang out with? The people who'll be across the street from me in my new house is an old married couple. The creepy ones that never leave their house." Phil didn't move his hand away. Dan fought a smile._

_"You're moving into_ that _house?" He asked instead, now knowing where it was._

_Phil nodded and smiled._

_"See, I won't be that far. Plus, we could both use the exercise." Phil joked, still leaning forward from when he'd moved Dan to look at him._

_Dan laughed, closing his eyes._

_And that was when he felt Phil's lips on his. Just barely. Just brushing Dans. Just enough to tempt him to move forward. So he did._

_At first he'd been frozen, not really processing what was going on or why Phil's face was so close to his. But then he leaned in._

_Phil had done this before. He had to have. He was good at it. He knew how to move his lips and tilt his head and do everything just right. And then Dan pulled away. Not after he went along with it though._

_Phil moved back to where he'd been and sat down again, looking completely unfazed._

_And then he just grabbed the popcorn bowl and stood up._

_"I'll refill this." And with that, he walked up the basement stairs. Just like that, it was over._

_Dan's cheeks started burning. He could swear he was on fire._

_Had he and Phil really just kissed? That wasn't the first thought that came to his mind at all. He had no clue what that was, but it couldn't have been a kiss. How could he have kissed Phil? How could Phil have kissed him? What was that if it wasn't kissing? Was that kissing? Had he and Phil really just kissed?_

_Dan looked at the television. The movie was still playing. As if nothing had happened._

_Dan saw his reflection in a dark scene playing on the screen. His mouth was still slightly open and his eyes were wide. He blinked and shut his mouth, looking down at the blanket clutched in his hands._

_He closed his eyes, shaking his head. He had_ not _just kissed Phil Lester._

_When Dan heard footsteps on the carpeted staircase, he didn't  dare open his eyes or look up. How had he let that happen? How could they be friends after that now? A million thoughts were rushing through his mind but they were moving too fast for him to really grab hold of any of them. He was sure they were all stupid though._

_He felt Phil sit down next to him again. For a split second he thought of doing it again, but he instantly pushed it down. See? Stupid._

_"Hey." Phil said, pulling the blanket over himself again. It was silent for a few moment, some static coming from the TV, but the movie was on a suspenseful and quiet scene. No noise there either. Nothing to distract Dan from Phil._

_"I just kissed you." Phil stated. Dan heard the popcorn rustling and Phil eating some. As if nothing had happened!_

_"Mmhm." His only response. Stupid._

_"You kissed me back."_

_"Mmhm."_

_"Dan?"_

_"Yes?"_

_"Did you like it?"_

_Silence. Why couldn't he speak?_

_"Dan?"_

_"Yes?"_

_"Are you scared?"_

_Silence._

_And then,_

_"Terrified."_


	7. Meeting Anthony

 

"Can I go over to your house for dinner tonight?" Dan asked over the phone. His parents had gone out to shop for groceries and he knew that his mother was planning on making dinner that night. She wasn't all that great of a chef.

"Even  _I_  don't eat dinner at my house Dan. That'd be so awkward. Especially with my brother visiting from college, he hates me even more than my parents do." Dan could practically hear Phil rolling his eyes.

"They don't hate you." Dan said quietly and unhelpfully.

"No, you're right. They don't hate me, they're just really disappointed that I didn't turn out as 'perfect' as my brother." Phil corrected himself.

"Whatever, lets just go to Ruby's. The burgers kind of suck, but the milkshakes are good." Dan offered, leaning against the wall behind him.

"Ok, Ruby's at 6:30. I'll head over to your house and we'll walk from there." Now Dan was rolling his eyes.

Phil's house was closer to Ruby's than Dan's, but Phil would do anything to avoid Dan going over to his house. Ever since he'd moved, they barely hung out at Phil's house. It was also around the time that Phil came out to his family and his brother initially said that he couldn't live in the house anymore. Ever since then it had been a lot of Phil over at the Howell residence.

Dan walked over to Phil's house at 6:20 to make sure that he'd get there before Phil started going over to Dan's. Sometimes awkward encounters had to happen. And Dan loved hating Martyn so blatantly. He knew how much the big brother disapproved of Phil even existing, and as the person who was most thankful for Phil's existence, Dan thought of it as a personal challenge.

The chips of his doorbell weren't as familiar in this house as they were at the old house, but he'd still memorized them by accident.

"Oh, hi Daniel." He was greeted by Martyn, who'd awkwardly gone from a smile to a disapproving glare within the first seconds of opening the door.

"Hi Martyn. You still have the old haircut. I see you didn't take my advice on that."

~~~

"I can't believe you came by my house." Phil was being overdramatic. And that was coming from  _Dan_. Which is really saying something.

"Oh come on, Phil, it wasn't that big of a deal." Dan replied, taking fries off of Phil's plate. Phil had ordered a burger, a mint chocolate chip milkshake, and a plate of fries. Not a  _side_  of fries. A plate of fries.

"You insulted his hair  _again,_  after the whole scene you made when he visited for Christmas. And then you called him childish for mentioning that you had an afro when you were eight. I've never heard anyone say 'pick on someone your own size' in such a passive aggressive way before, in my life. And I have seen a  _lot_  of passive aggression in my days at Lester family dinners." Phil reminded harshly, taking an angry bite from his burger. Yes, an angry bite from a burger. Phil could do anything in an angry way when he was annoyed.

"Sorry, but he's such a dick. And he makes it too easy, with those stupid sweater vests. I mean, what even  _are_  those." Dan said, slowly moving the plate of fried closer to his side of the table.

"You can't just come over like that. They already think our whole friendship is just because I'm trying to turn you gay and seduce you." Phil said seriously, pulling his plate of fries back. Angrily.

"Well...." Dan's words had sarcasm all over them.

"Oh shut up, I didn't turn you gay, you were always gay. And I didn't seduce you, you seduced me." Phil said decidedly, sitting back and crossing his arms.

"Excuse me, thirteen year old closeted Dan was not trying to seduce  _anyone_." He defended, drinking from his cookie dough milkshake. It was the only thing he'd ordered. Dan didn't usually eat much (Phil was always worrying about it, but he'd shut up as soon as Dan said he sounded like his mother).

"Well 'thirteen year old closeted Dan' was the one who kissed first." Phil whispered, leaning forward so that no one else would hear.

"That is so not true!" Dan laughed, " _You_  kissed  _me_! Remember, we were watching Star Wars." Dan lowered his voice as well.

"Oh that was  _barely_  a kiss! You were the one who  _actually_  kissed first." Phil argued back. Dan just rolled his eyes. "All I'm saying is that I only count it as a kiss if someone uses tongue. I did not use tongue the first time I 'kissed' you. You however..." He trailed off, as if it was some sort of big secret. Dan just laughed, again.

"You're in a good mood today." Phil noticed, taking a sip from Dan's milkshake. 

"Yeah, I guess. Beating you brother in an argument is always a great way to start the day," He shrugged.

"Well I'm happy that you're happy. We should take advantage of this rarity and actually do something today. Too bad theres nothing to do in this shitty ass town with it's zero attractions and stupi..." Phil trailed off suddenly in the midst of his rant about how sucky their town was, which was weird, since he loved ranting about how sucky their town was. Dan turned in the booth to see what Phil was staring at. Whatever distracted him from bashing the town had to be something worth seeing.

"Who is  _that,_ " Phil asked as soon as Dan's eyes landed on some guy who'd just entered the diner and was waiting in line for a table. Ruby's always had a line. Usually just of around three people, but a line nonetheless.

Before Dan could even fully turn back around, Phil was standing up and walking over from the back of the dinner to get a closer look.

"Phil, what are you-" Dan reached out to grab Phil's wrist and turn him around, but he was a little too late.

He turned around and blushed feverishly. Phil flirting with straight guys, aside from the fact that it always got them in some sort of danger, annoyed the hell out of Dan. No matter what, it never ended well.

But, of course, only about six minutes later Phil returned with the guy following him to the back.

As soon as he was up close, Dan could instantly tell that he was gay. Yeah yeah, he should know more than anyone that the stereotypes weren't always true, but this guy was  _definitely_  gay. Dan isn't sure whether is was the skinny bell bottom jeans, the t-shirt that was  _not_  mens, the nail polish, or just the way he walked, but this guy was gay.

"Hey, Dan, this is Anthony. Anthony, this is my best and only friend, Dan." Phil said, introducing them.

"Only friend? With you good looks? Thats impossible" The guy, Anthony, joked, sticking his hand out for Dan to shake it.  _Definitely gay_.

Dan took his hand, but hesitantly.

"Nice to meet you. My family is visiting for the summer. We're from San Fran. Great place up there. I grew up right near the Castro. My mom and brother and I moved there from Sacramento after she divorced my dad, started dating girls instead. Best hometown ever, if you ask me."

_Definitely gay._

"Nice to meet you" Dan said stiffly.

Ok, good news, it was  _not_  some straight guy that Phil was planning on flirting with.

Bad news, it  _was_  a gay guy that Phil had probably  _already_  been flirting with.

Bad news for Dan, at least.

Phil invited this Anthony kid to sit down next to him and the conversation continued.

"So what brought you to this tragedy town for the summer?" Phil asked, offering his fries.

"My mom grew up here. She wanted me and my brother to see what it was like, living in a small town so close to such a big city. My guess is that she also just misses it. She's is a super sentimental person, she basically cried when we  drove past her old house," Anthony said. Damn it. He was good at socializing. Thats already one point on Dan.

"Well its too bad that you have to miss a summer in San Fransisco for one in this drab place. It kind of sucks here, theres nothing to do. Dan and I are like the only two gay guys here, and Dan isn't even out, so this place is pretty close minded." Phil said, clearly just using an excuse to tell Anthony that he's into guys, if it wasn't obvious already.

"Oh, I don't believe that for a second. I bet this place is crawling with closeted guys just waiting for someone to cheat on their girlfriends with." Anthony commented, taking a handful of fries. "I mean, just in my first week here I made out with some guy who claims that he's 'totally straight, just with one or two exceptions'. I mean, how sad, right? Anyways, he invited me to some party that he's throwing tonight, if you guys wanna come. Apparently he's really popular at the public high school and a ton of people'll go, so I'm sure he won't notice if you crash it."

Ok, this guy clearly didn't understand that that 1. Dan hated parties, and 2. If Phil was crashing a party, he'd make it known.

"Wait, popular at the high school?" Phil instantly locked eyes with Dan. "You couldn't possibly mean"

A lightbulb went off over Dan's head.

" _Will_ _Wattfort_ " Dan and Phil both said the name at the exact same time.

They'd been theorizing about that kid their whole lives. They'd both just had a very slight suspicion he was gay at first, but it grew into this obsession where they were always looking for ways to find out. It had quickly become an inside joke between the two of them. He also happened to be the most popular kid at Lower Marion High School,  _by far_.

"How'd you guys know?" Anthony asked casually, as if he hadn't just unraveled a mystery that they'd been pondering and conspiring about their entire lives.

Phil instantly broke into that loud laughter of his.

"No way! Dan, we called it!" Dan just started chuckling along with Phil, trying to ignore Anthony's presence imposing on this very important discovery.

"Wait, why is this such a big deal?" Anthony asked, confused but smiling with them.

"Oh my god, I could never explain the true amount of happiness that you've just caused Dan and I, but I'll just skip to this part: You can't have him." Phil said jokingly. "Danny here called dibs."

"Don't call me Danny," Dan said to Phil before turning to Anthony. "And that was Freshman year of high school. He's all yours."

After a few moments of Phil explaining the background of them speculating on this kids sexuality and not-so-subtling flirting, Dan was out of his laughing and good mood and was ready for Anthony to leave them to their lunch. He'd lived through enough of Phil liking someone else so much and was sick of it now.

"Phil, we have to talk." He said, interrupting something that Anthony was saying and standing up and walking towards the back of the dinner, near the staff room (it was basically just a broom closet where the waitresses smoked sometimes and aired it out of the window. Dan had worked at Ruby's for two years and knew how to jiggle the handle just right to open it without actually using a key. It was the worlds work working door). He knew that Phil would follow. It was a power move.

"What is it?" Phil asked urgently, sliding through the door, right behind Dan. He flicked on the dim and blinking light in the close quarters.

"Seriously? That guy? You can do so much better Phil."

"What'd you mean? He's so hot!"

Ok, Phil had a point.

"He totally isn't. You're just blinded because he's probably the only openly gay guy you've met in your entire life." Dan said matter-o-factly. Phil just waited a beat before speaking again.

"So what?" He asked. "Who else am I gonna shamelessly flirt with for fun?"

Dan just rolled his eyes.

"You are  _so_  stupid sometimes, Phil."

And of course, Phil just looked dumbfounded and confused.

Dan grabbed Phils unbuttoned jean jacket and pushed him back against the wall, their lips crashing together. He caught Phil by surprise, but they'd done this so often that it was second nature to kiss back anyways. They moved expertly together, Dan one step ahead of Phil the whole time - a rarity.

Dan pulled back, leaving Phil wanting more. He knew exactly how to kiss Phil. It was one of his few talents, but it was a useful one.

"What was that for?" Phil asked, smiling. "I mean, I'm not complaining but,"

"You're just really stupid sometimes, thats all." He let go of Phil's jacket, which had been bunched up in his fists, and walked out, flipping the light switch off and heading back to the table. Another power move.

Sure, Dan could be socially anxious and a generally awkward dork most of the times, but he also knew from observation how to be cool. 

 


	8. Blue Boys Closet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Little authors note: There will be some gay stereo types, not only in this chapter, but throughout the whole story. This chapter, I guess, is when that becomes evident. I just wanted to put a disclaimer explaining why I'm adding this to the plot. This story takes place in the 1980's. There are tons of LGBTQ+ stereotypes now in 2017, so clearly it was way harsher back then. It sucks, I know, but its what's accurate and its kind of why I wanted to have this take place in the 80's. Also because I like the aesthetic. Anyways, I'm just putting this here to say that a lot of the things said or insinuated in this story about the LGBTQ+ community are not accurate. As someone who's in the LGBTQ+ community and follows none of the stereotypes of her sexuality, I know that. I just didn't want to cause any confusion with that. Also, I already put this as a warning in the description, but I'll say it again incase someone didn't see: LGBTQ+ slurs and discrimination will take a big part in this story. If these things trigger you, I recommend not reading on, or at least bracing yourself. Hope you enjoy the chapter

Wolf Like Me - TV On The Radio

  _"Won't you lay hands on me_

_Mirror my malady"_

 

_"Baby doll, I recognize_

_You're hideous inside"_

 

_"Theres a curse, comes with a kiss_

_The bite that binds, the gift that gives"_

* * *

 

"No." Dans response came before Phil even asked a question as they walked through Packer Park. It was the short way home from Suburban Square - where Ruby's was.

"Come on, Dan, please?" Phil had been expecting this. Anyone who knew Dan would expect him to say no.

"I said no and thats that. I am not going."

Phil gave up then. But Dan knew it was only momentary. Whenever Phil gave up, it was only  momentarily.

Once they reached Dan's house, he picked up the argument again.

"Dan, it'll be fun. I'll be there, that hot guy Anthony will be there. We finally know the truth about  Will Wattfort! We were right all along, don't you want to see him now and just bask in the experience of being right?" This was how Phil spoke. In a weird language somewhere between persuasion and begging and poetry.

"No. I'm not going." Dan tried to sound firm in his decision, but he almost never did.

"Pleeeeeeease?" Phil urged as Dan kept putting in the key to the Howell residence wrong.

"No." He said, finally opening the door.

Phil dropped it again until they got to Dan's room.

"Are your parents home?" He asked.

"Probably not, they like to be out of the house as much as possible." Dan sat down at the swivel chair at his desk. Phil walked over and grabbed up a piece of lined paper from the open drawer. He scribbled something onto it then held it up.

_Please_

"Phil, you're too stubborn for your own good." Dan said, taking the paper from him and crumpling it up.

"Dan, you're too blue for your own good." Phil commented, sitting down on Dan's bed.

_Blue._

Phil used this word to describe Dan all the time. Blue boy. It had been his nickname from ages ten to sixteen. Then is started fading away. Of course, Phil had been the only one to call him that.

 _'Oh blue boy, you're so tragic',_  he'd said the night that Dan had been having his first identity crisis. At the age of ten. That  _was_  quiet tragic. But not in the poetic way that Phil made it out to be. Dan always figured that his tragedy wasn't poetic enough to deserve Phil's words, but he got them anyways. He was more thankful for that than for most things.

The meaning of blue had changed for Phil throughout the years. Sometimes it meant tragic, sometimes it meant sad, sometimes it meant happy, sometimes it meant lucky, sometimes it meant weird, sometimes it meant cool, sometimes it meant passionate, sometimes it meant mad, sometimes it meant calm. In the end it had become too ambiguous to use naturally. In this context, Dan had no clue what it meant. He had a feeling that Phil knew exactly what it meant this time and wasn't going to tell him.

"Phil, I'm not going. And don't you dare smoke that inside here. My parents will smell it and my mom will freak out..." Dan's voice died out as Phil lit the cigarette he'd taken out of his back pocket. "Really, Phil? Really?" he asked as Phil took a drag.

"Come on, Dan. It's a party. It'll be plenty of fun. If you're not happy there just drink a little, I'm sure the cheap alcohol will be provided."

Dan shook his head.

"Don't be so blue."

"I don't even know what that means today."

"What blue means today doesn't matter. All you have to know is that you can go to a party and still be your blue self, but with a happy Phil at your side."

Dan rolled his eyes.

Phil gave up again. For now.

He stood up and took another drag from his cigarette, handing it to Dan as he walked past him to get to the record player in the corner of Dan's room. He had it sat on the floor, next to his stack of vinyls.

London Calling. The least sad album that Dan had. Phil picked it up and sat down in front of the stereo, setting it up.

the melodies of Lost In The Supermarket started floating through the room. Probably the saddest song on the album.

"I like this song." Phil whispered.

"I know." Dan said, sitting down, cross legged, across from him.

They let the song play on.

Phil took his cigarette back from Dan and put it out on the metal of the leg of his desk. He leaned forward and kissed Dan.

He tasted slightly of smoke, but mostly minty. Like usual.

The kiss lingered.

"How about now?" Phil asked, his eyes still closed.

"No." Dan replied, smiling softly.

"Worth a shot."

~~~

"I don't even know what we're doing here." Dan said grumpily, standing with his arms crossed and his shoulders forward in the dark summer night.

He knew exactly what he was doing there. He let himself be bribed by Phil kissing him and promising a basement movie night again. This happened far too often.

"Ok, Dan, lesson one:" Phil started, putting his hands of Dan's shoulders and looking him in the eyes. "If a hot guy invites you to a party, you don't say no. Especially if you'll be crashing the party. And especially if he's gay."  Then he took a step back and looked Dan up and down. "Lesson two: stop brooding. Lesson three: You're gay, learn to dress yourself well for a party." And with that, he left Dan to ponder what he was insinuating about his outfit and to scramble behind him.

He was wearing jeans, a white t-shit, and a zip-up. That was normal party wear, right? Shit, he was already getting in his head about it. And now Phil had disappeared into the house and Dan had no clue how he'd find him in the mass of people that were sure to be awaiting him when he opened the door. But he'd been standing on the front steps, directly in front of the white door, for long enough that some guy drinking out of a plastic red cup on the porch had started looking at him weird. Dan hurried inside, shutting the door behind him.

He had been right about the myriad of people there. He almost had no space to even walk. His worst nightmare.

An obnoxiously loud song way playing through the whole house. Dan could practically feel it in the floor. There were huge speakers in every corner. The song itself wasn't that bad, he'd even go as far as saying that it was good. But the volume of it had him pulling the hood of his grey jacket up to cover his ears inconspicuously.

He didn't know anyone there. He didn't know anyone most of the places he went. He recognized Tessa Brooks as the schools lead cheerleader. She was in the corner making out with her boyfriend, Chase something. Or was it Jake? he had no clue, they all looked and acted the same.

He saw Louise Pentland, she worked at the bookstore in the summers and on weekends. He'd never talked to her other than asking where a book might be.

Ok, so he knew a few people from school. But he didn't really  _know_  them. He'd never even talked to them. He just knew their faces.

Dan was already mentally face palming. Why had he even agreed to go to a party in the first place? He specifically remembered telling Phil that he was not going. Phil could convince a rock to roll up a hill. Especially the rock was Dan, because he seemed his most persuasive when he was convincing Dan of something.

All he had to do was smoke his stupid cigarettes and quote his stupid poetry and give his stupid kisses and be his stupid version of perfect and Dan would do anything he asked. It was fucking easy for him.

Dan went along trying not to touch anyone. No such luck, as he bumped into people left and right. Though most of the time it was people bumping into him. He had to squeeze in between groups everywhere he went. Everyone had red solo cups in their hands and it was really starting to seem like a safety hazard.

But alas, he finally made his way through the foyer and was now in some sort of dinning room. People were using the fancy table for beer pong and he walked in just in time to see someone throw a paper plate with some sort of dip on it into the chandelier. Everyone stopped and looked for a moment as it looked like it was about to fall off of the ceiling from the violent swinging in circles. When it slowed to a stop, a bunch of the guys started cheering. Football players. They never knew when to stop cheering, did they?

God, he hated it here more than he hated most places and he'd only been here for five minutes. And he really hated a lot of places. Dan left the dinning room and wandered into a living room with a modern television and couches that had drinks spilled all over them. How had people managed to trash this house so much in such little time?

With so many people, Dan wasn't sure how he'd ever find Phil. Then again, when Phil crashed a party he liked to make sure that everyone knew he was there, and that everyone knew he'd crashed it. How he'd do that in this big of a crowd, Dan wasn't sure. But he was sure it'd happen eventually.

Until then, he'd just have to walk around aimlessly and look for him, trying to avoid human contact at all costs.

Dan decided that leaving the living room would probably be a good choice considering that it was the mecca of where kids were hanging out at the party. He even saw Hazel there. Though she didn't have a drink in her hand - one of the few - she was still there. How someone as geeky and unproblematic as Hazel would even find out about a party like this, much less actually be there, Dan had no clue. She looked seriously perturbed by everything going on around her though, so at least Dan wasn't alone on that one.

He considered maybe starting a conversation with her, but she'd probably be freaked out and  confused as to why the weird kid who always bought the same video games over and over was talking to her.

Hazel was the cashier at the video game store. She was one of the older kids in their grade and had gotten accepted into Yale. And obviously Dan had to buy the same video games over and over, Phil kept breaking them by accident.

So Dan figured he'd skip out on talking to her and find the kitchen instead. Maybe there were snacks. He seriously doubted it, but it gave him something to do besides stand there with his hood up and his hands in his pockets. He probably looked creepy.

Only seconds after Dan walked into the kitchen, his eyes landed on Phil. At first he felt relief flood over him and leaned against the doorframe, ready to call his friend over. But then he noticed someone else in the mess of people juggling their cups and bottles of alcohol. Anthony Padilla, talking to Phil.

Dan was already rolling his eyes.

Phil was sitting on the countertop, a cigarette loosely propped between the lips of his lazy smile. Anthony was leaning on the counter across from him.

Dan wasn't sure if he would throw up or punch the wall first.

Throw because of the way that Anthony was looking at Phil as if he was going to kiss him, which is gross enough that its throw-up-inducing. 

Punch the wall because he didn't want to be here. He had nothing to do and no ride home without Phil, who was now flirting with the new kid. He was frustrated and annoyed and was already walking out of the kitchen, no longer caring if he bumped into people.

He wasn't sure where he was going but he was tired of Phil's shit. Dan was tired of his stupid infatuation with a dork who'd never like him the same way. To Phil, they were just friends. Not even friends with benefits, just friends who made out sometimes because they both liked boys and no one else that they knew was gay. Well, not anymore. And now Dan was annoyed again because he couldn't stop comparing himself to Anthony. Fucking Anthony Padilla. What kind of a name was that anyways?

It was so incredibly Phil to trade in the old for a new and hotter version.

Dan just kept shoving through the crowd, using his shoulders and elbows to make way for himself. This seemed like a good plan until he reached the living room and some girl turned around and spilled whatever atrocity had been in her red cup all over Dans hoodie. He instantly felt it soak through to his t-shirt.

"Sorrry..." She was definitely slurring her words more than anyone should be.

Dan had already been mad and annoyed. Now he was mad, annoyed, and uncomfortable. He just said the first thing that came to his mind.

"How are you already drunk when no one even showed up here until thirty minutes ago?" It came out a lot sassier than he'd intended. That seemed to happen a lot when he was mad.

The girl just sort of stumbled over a step and started crying.  _Fucking crying_. Dan rolled his eyes and was about to get away from the situation as soon as he could, but then some (probably boyfriend) football player turned around and of course the girl pointed at Dan and said something along the lines of "that guy's a meanie". But then again, it could have been "mac and cheesy" for how much her words were running together.

Of course it had to be Rick, one of the toughest guys at Lower Marion High School, who came to defend her. It couldn't have been Dodie, the sweet girl who was obsessed with music and only sat with Jon at lunch. Or Tyler, the sassy pacifist. Of course it had to be fucking Richard. Or, who he was better known as, 'Rick'. He was a year younger than Dan, but twice his size. And Dan was pretty tall.

"Do we have a problem here?" Rick asked in his booming voice. Dan felt like he was two feet tall.

"N-no, I was just, I-I don't even-" Fuck. He forgot that he stuttered when he wasn't talking to Phil or family.

"Oh, you t-t-t-though what?" Of course the guy would go for the stutter. Who wouldn't?

Some people around them laughed at the 'joke' if it even constituted as one, and turned around. Dan shrunk even more.

"I-I'm sorry, I d-didn't mean to..." He had no idea what to say. He couldn't even move. Everything had left his mind except for this huge guy standing in front of him who could probably flick him off the edge of the earth.

"What'd you say about my girlfriend?" Well he'd assumed correctly. The ditzy blonde dating the strongest football player. It was like his life was a movie and him constantly being in horrendous situations was the comic relief. This would be the part where he got beat up. Except for in a movie it almost didn't seem too bad when the character got beat up. Just a plot device. But here, Dan feared for his life.

More of a crowd was gathering around them now. Christ, why was this guy's voice so loud?

"If you've got something to say to her, you can say it to me." It was like he was yelling without even raising his voice. He took a step closer to Dan when Dan didn't make a move to do anything.

Now Dan was just mad again. Still completely terrified, but mad. Why did everything have to be against him all the time. And why did this guy bring all of  the attention towards them? And why was this song so fucking loud? and why did this guy feel the need to stand so close to him when Dan couldn't move at all?

_No wonder his parents called him Richard. They must've known he'd be a fucking dick._

A few people laughed and suddenly Rick was blushing. Wait, what?

It was one of those moments where Dan was afraid that people could read his mind. But then he realized that he'd spoken out loud. All of the drugs in the air must've been effecting him.

"What the fuck did you just call me?"

The first thing that came to Dan's mind was to step up and say "did I stutter?" Just as one of his self deprecating jokes, but he wasn't that stupid. Though he had just called this guy a dick right in front of him, so maybe he  _was_  that stupid after all.

"Wait, whats going on? Dan is that you?" Phil's voice was behind him. Finally Dan gained movement in his legs and turned around. He felt like crying. Why was all of this happening? Why was there a circle of people laughing and whispering around Dan and Rick? Why was Anthony following Phil with a concerned look?

Phil pushed his way through the clusters of people and got through to Dan, grabbing his forearm.

"Are you ok?" He whispered, not a smart move with the loud music and hundreds of people talking. But Dan could read his lips.

"Oh, is your boyfriend coming to the rescue?" Rick said, laughing a stupid doofus laugh, as if it was the smartest joke anyone had ever made. It might as well have been, for how much everyone was laughing along. Dan didn't even turn around to face him. He knew that if he did, he'd break into tears. Damn anxiety. "Fags" Rick chuckled. Fucking doofus.

"So what if I was?" Phil let go of Dan and stepped forward, replacing his spot as Rick's main focus. Most of the crowd quieted down now. "What, is that funny to you? Yeah, I'm gay! Everyone knows that! It really doesn't matter! But Dan isn't gay, so leave him the fuck alone."

Dan almost wanted to laugh at the situation. Phil was tall as well, but Rick still towered over him. The only difference with what Phil did versus what Dan did was that Phil didn't cower, or stutter. But with Phil, Rick took a swing for his face.

Everything slowed down. Even the loud music. Dan had heard people describe that feeling of everything seeming to go slower when something big happened, but he always thought it was bullshit. It defiantly wasn't.

Phil's glasses flew off of his face. Broken. He barely wore his glasses. At first that was all that Dan's mind could process.  _Why was Phil wearing his glasses today?_

And then Anthony jumped out from behind him, amidst all of the oooh's and ahhh's, and grabbed a hold of Phil's shoulder. Dan wanted to tell him to get off. That he could help Phil better, since he'd known him for longer. But then he realized that it was because Phil was about to swing back at Rick, who was laughing.  _He was laughing_.

Dan stepped forward, catching the football player off guard, and socked him in the stomach.

Everything sped up again.

He didn't feel bad about it in the least.

There was more noise emitting from all of the surrounding peers now.

Rick was doubled over.

Dan was mad. He was really fucking mad. His mind went blank and all he could see was this doofus who didn't look scary anymore. This doofus who'd dared to lay a hand on Phil, as if he could get away with that.

He punched him again, not even noticing that he'd balled his other hand up into a fist. He punched his side. The guy fell to his knees. The music was still really loud. Without thinking, Dan brought back his foot and kicked Rick's shoulder with all of his little strength. But it didn't feel like that, like he wasn't that strong. He'd kicked him and hadn't felt a single thing.

Everything was blurry.

Dan ran away from the situation. He didn't have to push people out of his way this time. They moved.

~~~

A bathroom. He had to find a bathroom. He was elbowing his way through the party-goers now that he was away from all of the people who had seen what'd just happened. He got back to the foyer and saw stairs. There had to be a bathroom up there.

Barely anyone was on the upper floor. Probably because all of the lights were off and there were no speakers or drinks.

Dan opened a few doors before finding the room that he'd figured would be the only one to be completely empty - the bathroom.

He had been wrong. Two kids were smoking something awful smelling and gave Dan annoyed glares, shutting the door in his face as soon as he'd opened it.

The last door he saw that he hadn't checked was beside it. His last hope. It sounded dramatic, but Dan already felt like he was going to cry or throw up. His hand hurt from when he punched the guy, and the image of Phil's glasses falling to the ground and shattering kept replaying behind Dan's eyes.

He opened the door and looked into a semi-walking-in-broom-closet. And of course, two kids were making out.

A girl with bright red hair jumped off of some guy that had been against the wall. Dan didn't even care anymore. He stepped in and closed his eyes

"L-listen, you g-guys can stay if you want, but I'm n-not leaving." And with that declaration, the girl promptly ran out and slammed the door behind her. Dan flinched at the sound and leaned back against the wooden-panels wall.

The guy didn't move. Dan didn't know who it was. It had been too dark to tell before, and now he'd closed his eyes and wasn't opening them until the guy left. Then he could sob in peace.

The guy wouldn't leave. He seemed to be frozen in place.

"Um, hi." The strangers voice cracked, as if  _he_  was the nervous one. "I'm Will."

_Will._

"Will? A-as in Will Wattfort?"

"Yeah. This is my house."

"There are k-kids d-doing obscure drugs in your b-bathroom."

"I'd be more surprised if you said there weren't."

They both laughed. Dan felt calmer. Not calm, but maybe like he could open his eyes.

Yup. Will Wattfort was standing across from him. Hands in his pockets, as if the situation were totally casual. Dan wasn't really sure what casual was right now. He couldn't think. He didn't really care. He hadn't had a single drink, but he felt drunk. Maybe it was that thing that his mom talked about sometimes where after people get adrenaline rushes they feel sort of high. Dan figured that what happened downstairs counted as an adrenaline rush.

"I-I just got into a fight at W-Will Wattforts house." He had to say it out loud just to process it. He was too shaken to care that Will Wattfort was sitting across from him.

"You're probably not the only one." Will said.

Dan laughed, in a sad sort of way. Will Wattfort had a sense of humor. What a weird world.

"Hey, wait, you're that guy thats friends with Phil!" Wattfort said. That made Dan look up. It was dark, but his eyes adjusted enough to it by now that he could make out the big brown eyes and blonde hair. The Will Wattfort trademark style. Dan must've looked confused, because Will went on.

"Phil Lester. You're the guy that follows him around everywhere, aren't you?"

Dan's stomach dropped. He wanted to get out of there. Fast. Why was it always when he was in a horrible situation that his legs stopped working?

"Oh my god, sorry, that sounded so rude. I swear I'm not a jerk, I just don't think before I speak sometimes. I just... I've noticed Phil, I guess. He's hard not notice. And you're always with him. I didn't mean it like in a 'you follow him around' way. Even though thats exactly what i said." he awkwardly laughed. Dan appreciated him trying to save the conversation.

"Yeah. Phil and I h-hang out a l-lot." He said, silently cursing his stutter.

"Wait... are you gay?"

Of course Will Wattfort would ask that.

Dan's cheeks were burning. He was leaving. He had nowhere to go, but he had to leave.

"No, wait! I'm sorry! I didn't mean for that to come out like that! I swear I don't have a problem with gay people!"

Dan chuckled, suddenly remembering what Anthony had told them. Clearly not. For some reason, he didn't leave. And so, the conversation went on.

"I just guess I figured that you and Phil were, like, dating, or something. I mean, he's gay, right? Or, bi, or whatever. He always talks about it." Will sat down on the carpeted floor. Dan followed.

There was just enough space that Dan could sit cross-legged and his knees didn't hit the walls.

"No, w-we're not d-dating."

"So you're just friends?"

"Its complicated, b-but essentially, y-yes."

"Why is it complicated? Did you guys used to date?"

"N-no, we've n-never dated."

"Do you think you'll date in the future?"

"W-why do you care s-so much?" That came out harsher than he'd meant it to. The adrenaline rush was wearing off. Dan hadn't meant to be rude. He figured that Will was actually a nice guy. It must suck to be closeted  _and_  popular. He actually had a reputation that he could ruin. That was why he had been answering his questions in the first place. He also knew that if Dan came out to him, or insinuated anything, Will wouldn't tell. And now he'd just almost yelled at him. Dan had a conscious. He hated it.

"I'm sorry."

It was dark, but Dan could see Will blushing as he apologized.

"No, I am. Listen, it's c-complicated, ok? With P-Phil everything i-is complicated. And, y-yeah, I'm gay. But w-we can just keep that as a s-secret, r-right?" Today had revealed a lot. Like that fact that Will Wattfort was an actual person, and was actually nice. And actually seemed kind of similar to Dan.

"Yeah. I won't tell anyone."

And that was that. They just sort sat there in that space for a silent moment before the song changed. It was another good one. Whoever chose the music had good taste. Dan figured that it was probably Wills music.

"Good s-song."

Will chuckled.

"It's by TV On The Radio. They're this really cool band that I've been playing all night hoping that it might get into someones mind that they're good. It hasn't ever worked at any of the other parties." He confessed.

"W-well I think i-it sounds pretty cool, f-f-for what its worth." Dan said.

"Can I tell you something?" As soon as Will said this, Dan figured he was going to come out. He was right, in a way.

"Sure."

"I was asking all of that stuff because I kind of had a crush on Phil in elementary school. I mean, I don't anymore, but it was kind of when I realized that I was into guys."

Ok that was more than just coming out. How drunk was he? He hadn't been slurring his words  _that_  much, but maybe Dan just wasn't paying attention. He was drunk enough to the point where he'd tell a total stranger about his first crush. His first crush on a guy.

"M-maybe I should g-get going." Dan didn't want to make the situation awkward, but when did he ever not make things awkward?

He stood up and turned the doorknob, but Will hurriedly followed his movements, putting his hand over Dan's.

"Wait-" Will was definitely drunk. He swayed a little bit as he stood. And he put his hand over Dan's, randomly. A stranger. Who would do that sober? Dan kind of felt like an ass for wanting to just leave him there, but in his defense, he really wanted to change out if his shirt which was still soaked through with whatever that girl had spilled on him.

"Don't go."

Why was Will Wattfort asking Dan to stay with him in a closet?

Now that he thought of it, their whole situation at the moment was kind of ironic. Ok,  _very_  ironic.

"Seriously. I hate being alone."

Dan could feel Will's breath. Poor Will. Poor, closeted Will, who had no one. At least Dan had Phil, right?

Thinking about Phil annoyed Dan again. Did he think he could just randomly go decide that he liked Anthony?

Well, he could, technically. That had been a part of the ground rules they'd set up when they were thirteen. They could date other people.

Well if Phil could just randomly go off kissing other guys, then so could Dan.

Yeah, he could be reckless too.

Dan turned around, facing Will. They had to be only inches away. The music got louder downstairs as Dan leaned forward hesitantly.

He'd never kissed anyone but Phil. And that girl Cat, but that had been when he was eleven and really really confused.

Will's lips were softer. And Will was more submissive. But he kissed back.

Dan took this as an opportunity and put his hands on Will's shoulders, guiding him back against the wall, not leaving his lips.

"Are you drunk enough to the point where you'll forget this by tomorrow?" Dan asked, breaking away from Will only for a moment.

"Probably not." Will mumbled.

"Lets just pretend you are." Dan whispered before taking Wills shirt off.


	9. Blue Anger

Do I Wanna Know - Arctic Monkeys

_"Are there some aces up your sleeve?"_

_"How many secrets can you keep?"_

 

_"Sad to see you go, was sort of hoping that you'd stay_

_The nights were mainly made for saying things that you can't say tomorrow day"_

 

_"Crawling back to you"_

_"Simmer down and pucker up"_

* * *

 

Dan held a damp cloth up to Phil's forehead. He was bleeding from where he'd been punched earlier. Right above the eye.

According to Phil, it'd only bled a little bit and the main problem was the bruise, and then it stopped bleeding and din't really hurt that much all together, but now it was bleeding again because that motherfucker punched someone wearing goddamn glasses.

Dan was annoyed.

"Dan?" Phil called his attention. He was sitting on the counter in Dan's bathroom, right next to the sink. Dan was trying to clean up his injury so that they could put a band-aid on it and call it a day.

"Yes" Dan was trying to avoid looking Phil in the eye by focusing intently on the spot right above it, where he had a huge bruise.

"Why did you do that?" He asked, "Why did you punch the guy? Twice. And then kick him." Phil's voice was softer and more delicate than usual. Dan was standing very close to him. He could feel those blue eyes boring into his.

"You would've done it too, if Andrew, or whatever his name is, hadn't held you back." Dan could hear the malice slipping into his speech. He didn't mean to get mad. He didn't mean to feel any emotions, most of the time. He usually actually tried to prevent them. It hadn't worked even once in his whole life. Also, he remembered Anthony's name. He just didn't care to say it.

"Thats not answering my question, Dan." Phil said, raising his hand and closing it gently around Dan's wrist, forcing him to take his attention from Phil's wound and actually look at him. So Dan did. He looked him in the eyes.

"Because he punched you. Hard. You were wearing your fucking glasses." Dan could feel anger building in his heart. He tried to stop it, like he always did.

"Dan..." Phil lowered his hand, but didn't let go of Dan's wrist. "You're not supposed to be like that. You're not supposed to be the one who punches people and gets mad. You're the nice one." Phil sounded sad. Which just made Dan even angrier.

"Oh, so you're allowed to actually do things and I just have to sit there quietly and watch from afar? Am I not allowed to go to parties and have fun too?" He was raising his voice. He knew this wasn't going to get him anywhere and he knew that he wasn't actually mad at Phil. But he was mad. And he had to put that anger  _somewhere_. He felt helpless. Like he was trying to clean up spilled water with his bare hands. It wasn't doing anything, and he knew he was doing it wrong, but he didn't have a sponge or a towel to clean up the mess with.

"Dan, thats not what I'm saying, I just-" Phil's voice was slipping. He was starting to sound hopeless.

"I can have fun too, Phil. I can go and flirt with random guys if I want to too, you know? So yeah, I punched that dude. And after that, I made out with Will Wattfort. And if you can do that shit, then so can I. I can do whatever I want,  _Phil_." Dan pulled his hand away from Phil's grip and stormed out of the bathroom, crossing the hall and going to his room.

He hadn't meant to get that loud. Or that mad. He never meant to get mad. But Dan had all of these stupid feelings in him and he didn't know why he seemed to have so much more of it then everyone else. And they always spilled over and he never had anything to clean them up with. So he was just left to sit there in his spilled feelings and he couldn't do anything about it.

He hoped he hadn't shut the door too loudly. His parents were still asleep upstairs. Or at least he hoped they were. They had to be. Right? It was three AM. They usually clocked out by ten. Old people.

Dan heard the click of his doorknob turning and looked over to see Phil peeking in. 

Fuck. Even when he had an ugly bruise on his forehead and was clearly tired, he looked hot as hell.

He didn't have to welcome him in. Phil knew that Dan's bedroom might as well be his own, even when Dan was upset at him.

Phil slowly made his way over and sat next to Dan on his bed, but Dan instantly stood up and just stayed standing awkwardly by his desk, his hands in his pockets. Not because he couldn't stand to be near Phil, but because he knew that if Phil was so close to him he'd forgive him instantly. And no matter how much he hated getting mad, he didn't want to forgive Phil right away. He was still annoyed and on edge.

But everything was starting to get blurry in his mind and he wasn't sure why anymore. Not because he was drunk (he hadn't had anything at the party) but because he was as fucking emotional as always. He hated that. Emotions always made things blur together and fuzzy around the edges, even when they were actually sharp.

" _Dan_ ," Phil sounded hurt. He looked hurt. Hurt that Dan hadn't even wanted to sit near him. Part of Dan's brain thought ' _good_ ', but most of it was just even sadder now. He hated hearing Phil sound like that.

"Dan, I didn't mean anything like that. I just... I need to know that you're ok. You were acting really out of the ordinary tonight. First off, you're a self proclaimed pacifist. You punched a guy twice and then kicked him. He literally fell over. The star quarterback of Lower Marion High School, and you knocked him over like it was nothing. And then you... made out with Will Wattfort? Which, by the way, we need to talk about that tomorrow once we've both calmed down. But you don't do that kind of stuff normally. I just need to know that you're ok, Dan. Are you ok?"

Dan wanted desperately to say no. To say no and to fall into Phil's arms and cry and listen to Phil's voice and fall asleep like that.

"I'm fine. Yes, I'm ok." He sighed, falling backwards onto the chair at his desk. Phil just stood up and walked towards Dan, kneeling down in front of him so that he wasn't towering over him.

"Dan, I'm not stupid. I won't bother you about it anymore if you truly, honestly don't want me to, but I'm not stupid. We've been friends since we were seven. I know when you're ok and when you're not. I don't know what I did, but I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I would never hurt you on purpose." Phil stood back up. Dan had been avoiding his eye contact anyways, so the kneeling had been unnecessary. He put his hand under Dans chin, tilting his head up so that he'd look him in the eyes. Again.

He leaned right in front of Dan, centimeters from his lips. He wasn't going to kiss Dan while he was mad at him. It'd been a rule they'd made. No kissing the other while they're mad at you. It's not fair. But the mad one can do the kissing if they want to. That  _is_  fair.

So Dan closed his eyes and closed the space between them. Because he had no fucking will power. And because Phil's lips were familiar and soft and perfect. How was he supposed to resist that? The whole world was obviously against him just for having put those lips in front of him and still expecting him to think clearly. It was all rigged.

It was only a small kiss, but when Phil pulled away, he didn't move far. He stayed with his eyes closed and his forehead against Dans.

"I'm here for you, Dan. Please, just-" He stopped himself from speaking. Dan knew it was because he didn't want to cry and the tears were building up in his throat. Phil hated crying. Absolutely hated it. "Goodnight" He said instead, and then walked out. Or at least Dan figured he'd walked out, from the footsteps he heard leaving the room and closing the door. He hadn't opened his eyes. If he had he would've caved and asked Phil to stay. It was all rigged against him.

Dan ended up caving. He didn't have to walk very quickly to find Phil at the front door before he left.

" _Don't go._ "Dan whispered. He was quiet, partially because he didn't want to wake his parents and partially because he didn't want to say that at full volume. " _You know I don't like being alone_."

Of course Phil knew that. Phil knew everything there was to know about Dan. Well, except for how much he liked him. That secret would live inside of Dan forever.

So Phil stayed. Because he knew that Dan didn't like being alone.

And they laid in Dan's bed and faced each other, eyes open.

"Oh blue boy... You're not nearly as tragic as you think." Phil said before closing his eyes for the night.

Dan waited until he was completely sure that Phil as asleep before whispering something back.

_"Oh Phil, you don't know the half of it."_


	10. Stars Disappear as Quickly as They Appear

EASE - Troye Sivan

_"Don't you worry about me_

_I'll be fine if I can breathe"_

_"But lately_

_Every time I think I'm better_

_Picking my head up, getting nowhere"_

_"Tell me all of the things that make you feel at ease_

_Your touch, my comfort, and my lullaby"_

* * *

 

"Hey, lets go somewhere" Dan woke up to these words and Phil looking awake as ever, nudging his shoulder.

He didn't bother sitting up. He wasn't getting out of bed, no matter how important it was. The world could be ending, the sky could be falling on their heads. Dan wasn't getting up.

"Come on, we're going to miss the sunrise."

Now Dan sat up.

"You mean to tell me," He started "That you kept me up until three AM yesterday with the stupid party antics, and now you've waken me up before the sun is even awake?"

"Come  _on_  Dan."

Before he knew it, he was letting himself be dragged out of bed at a four thirty in the morning for some sort of vague plan. He also had Phil's commentary. Things like:

"Come on Dan, you can just stay in what you're wearing, we don't have time for you to change." Whilst Dan was wearing only a pair of boxers briefs and a  _'The Smiths'_  t-shirt.

"Dan if you don't go any faster I will literally carry you"

"You don't need to know where we're going Dan, thats beside the point!"

And, Dan's personal favorite,

"Dan, would you stop being so sleepy! It's adorable and hot at the same time and its confusing me!".

Through this whole process, Dan took his sweet time brushing his teeth, getting jeans on, and getting out of the door a quarter to 5 AM.

It was still dark out and no one was awake, but the street lights weren't on. It was kind of eerie, how quiet and dark it was. But it was warm. It was still a summer morning. It was just... empty.

It was kind of relieving, actually. Like the sun wasn't there to demand anything of Dan yet. He hadn't realized that the sun was so demanding until he had a morning without it, actually.

And now he and Phil were walking down the sidewalk, which for some reason Dan found ridiculous since there were no cars in the street. And for some reason, Dan found it ridiculous that they wouldn't just walk in the middle of the street when it was much more spacious.

"Phil," Dan said, calling the attention of his friend, who currently looked deep in though (but then again, when didn't he?). "There are no cars in the road."

"Great observation Dan. It's five in the morning, I doubt that there  _would_  be cars in the road at this time in this neighborhood."

"Well why don't we walk there then."

"Revolutionary idea, Daniel"

"Don't call me Daniel. It sounds weird coming from you."

"Ok, Danny boy, lets walk on the asphalt."

"Don't call me that either."

"Well I'm running out of nickname options, Dan."

"Dan is already a nickname for Daniel, Phil."

"Okay, I guess you got me there."

Dan just smiled and directed his walking towards the center of the road. Phil followed, and they went from there.

Five minutes later they arrived at Packer Park. The wooded area behind the aquarium. The sky was still consumed with dark and Dan found himself staring at the stars. He did this often. When he couldn't sleep, he'd imagine a starry sky and count stars instead of sheep. It took more concentration, but at least it wasn't as stupid as farm animals.

"Care to tell me exactly what we're doing here?" Dan asked at last, his curiosity getting the best of him. He knew he wouldn't get any answers out of Phil, but he has to try.

Phil just stopped their walking suddenly and turned.

"That tree. That one's pretty tall, right?" He asked, pointing behind Dan, who was completely confused now. He figured it was best not to question Phil when it came to strange things like this, though.

"I mean, I guess. It's a tree, trees are tall."

"No, but, you know what I mean-" Phil sputtered. "Is it tall compared to the other trees?"

Dan looked up at the tree tops. It was a pine tree with low branches and barely any pine needles. It loomed over most of the surrounding trees.

"Yeah. Why?" Dan asked, looking back at Phil. He saw a mischievous smile grow on his lips as he looked past Dans shoulder at the tree.

"Oh, wait, you can't possibly mean that you want to... Phil I am  _not_  climbing that tree! Do you see all of that sap! Thats  _way_  too high! I do  _not_  participate in sports and I did  _not_  agree to this!"

About ten minutes later, Dan had settled on one of the highest branches, a prime seat right next to Phil. Dan had protested that they stop climbing about half way up the tree, but Phil insisted that they get above the other tree tops. Of course Phil won the argument, he always won the arguments. Especially when there was the bribery of kisses involved. He was completely shameless.

"Okay, you got me up here miles from the ground, you better have a good reason." Dan said, nervously looking  looking at the ground. 

He'd never really had a fear of heights until the first time he fell from a high place. He and Phil had been thirteen and sitting on the rooftop of Phil's house. It was the day that they'd emptied the last of the furniture and belongings from this house to their soon-to-be one. There were all of these rushes of nostalgia, and at the same time things were a little stiff between Dan and Phil since they hadn't really spoken of the kiss since it'd happened. Well, the kiss,  _or_  the makeup that had followed. They hadn't touched on either of those subjects.

It had been the first time that Dan saw Phil pull out a cigarette. He lit it and coughed as he exhaled the smoke.

"Stole them from my mom." He explained to a wide-eyed Dan. "You want one?"

He'd said yes, for the experience, but instantly had a coughing fit and didn't understand in the least why anyone would enjoy such a thing. Phil looked like a pro, other than the few suppressed  coughs.

Both of their sets of parents were hanging out at the new house, "breaking it in" as Phil's mom explained it. The sun was just setting and the sky was fading from a dark pink to a purple. Few clouds were in the sky, but Dan found it hard to focus on the sky while Phil was sitting next to him smoking. Not because he thought that smoking was evil or anything, but just because Phil looked cool as hell doing it.

Their legs were dangling over the edge of the one story house and had Dan liked the weight of gravity pulling his sneakers down as they looked over to his house. The thought that he'd fall - the  _fear_  of falling - hadn't even occurred to him.

And then Phil had to go and speak.

"Hey, so, I think I'm going to tell my parents that I like boys."

I mean, who would, when put in that situation,  _not_  fall?

Dan thanked the gods that he didn't even believe in that it was only a one story drop, and that he'd had the sense to just let himself topple over when his feet hit the grass instead of trying to stick the landing.

He didn't break anything, just sprained his ankle. He didn't know that yet, though, and tried to stand as soon as he heard Phil shout "Oh my god, Dan!". That just resulted in him falling on his ass. He waited, sitting there in shock, until Phil burst back out through the front door and ran to him.

"I'm okay, I'm okay. It's just my ankle, I think. It hurts." Had been the first words out of his mouth.

"Why would you do that?!?" Phil asked, throwing himself onto the ground next to Dan as soon as he reached him, inspecting his ankle as if he was a trained professional.

"I didn't  _mean_  to!" He insisted, pulling his leg away from Phil, who was trying to move his foot, only upsetting the sprain.

"You practically jumped!" Phil shouted, throwing his arms up in frustration, letting his hands fall beside him on the grass.

"Well that was practically a jump scare!"

"Oh, come on, don't act surprised." Phil sounded exasperated and annoyed.

Dan didn't answer, he just occupied himself with a blade of grass.

"The kids have been calling me a fag since first grade, this isn't a shock to anybody."

"They don't even know what that word means!" Dan said irritably.

"Well it's still true!" Phil replied, raising his voice.

"No its not." Dan said after a moment, his voice low and soft.

"Yes it is, Dan. Don't be stupid. I fucking kissed you."

"No its not, that doesn't mean anything. It was one time, that doesn't make you gay!" Dan spoke louder this time, more assertive.

Phil had just given him the sad-eyes look. Like he knew something that Dan didn't and he felt bad about it. Dan always hated that.

"It doesn't!" He said again, his voice more desperate this time, looking Phil directly in the eyes, daring him to disagree. "Kissing me doesn't make you gay, because that would mean that  _I'm_  gay because I kissed you, and that is  _not_  true  _at all_."

Phil just gave him the same sad eyes.

"Stop it Phil, stop doing that! Stop looking at me like that! I'm right!" Dan had contended harshly.

"Dan..." Phil hadn't finish whatever he was going to say - if he had even planning on following that up with anything. He'd just rested his hand lightly on Dan's cheek and leaned forward. Dan hadn't even realized that he'd closed his eyes before they'd fluttered shut.

And then came the worst part. Phil didn't lean forward anymore. He must have been less than a centimeter from Dan's lips.

Dan felt the same heavy feeling in his stomach as he had the night they'd been watching Star Wars. His whole brain was screaming for him to move backwards. To get up and run back to his house and lock the door. To get as far from Phil as possible.

But it was like something had pulled him towards Phil, completely against his will. Like gravity, but instead of doing its job and pulling him to the center of Earth, it pulled his lips to Phil. Like they belonged there.

The kiss was soft, but not short-lived. At one point, Phil had started pulling away from Dan, but the brunette just put his hand on the back Phil's neck and kissed him more.

"Still not gay?" Phil asked, almost mockingly, when Dan broke apart from him, breathless. He was smiling feverishly, looking at Dan with an accusing glint in his eyes.

Dan just groaned and fell backward, laying on his back and looking up at the star free sky.

Phil scooted over and did the same, laying down next to Dan, one hand under his head and one on his stomach.

"Shut up. I'm not gay." Dan persisted.

"Sure."

"I'm  _not_." Dan swore. "I'm thirteen. I can't be gay. No one's gay."

"I beg to differ." Phil said.

"You're not gay either." Dan said it more like a demand than a statement. "Kissing a boy doesn't mean you're gay."  He reiterated.

"Maybe so," Phil agreed. "But I think that whether you liked the kiss or not kind of does dictate if you're gay or not."

Dan stayed silent, thinking of a counter argument.

He  _could_  just lie and say that he hadn't like the kiss at all. He could lie and say that his stomach was full of butterflies.  He could lie and say that his skin didn't catch fire where ever Phil touched it. He could lie and say that he didn't want to kiss Phil again, over and over until the sun went down and came back up again and then some. He could lie and say that he wasn't absolutely terrified.

But then he'd just be lying to Phil. He could never convince  _himself_  of those things.

He'd just have to keep reminding himself that that didn't make him gay. He was straight. He'd been raised straight. He'd always been straight and he always would be.

"No it doesn't. I'm not gay." Dan repeated. As if maybe saying it enough times would make it true.

Neither of them spoke for a while. The pain in Dan's ankle had disappeared. That, or he'd just gotten very distracted and couldn't feel it anymore.

"If I agree with you on that and we decide that neither of us are gay, can we keep doing that?" Phil asked, breaking the silence.

"Doing what?" Dan asked, his mind so full that putting together a real, sensible thought was becoming a challenge.

Phil, instead of answering in words, sat up and turned to face Dan, leaning down and kissing him lightly, his hand on Dan's grey  _"The Beatles"_  sweater to support himself.

"That." He said, sitting back up.

Dan closed his eyes, his hands messing with two patches of grass on either side of him. He didn't answer.

"You can sit on that, I'm gonna grab the pack of cigarettes that I left on the roof. Then we have until our parents come back from my new house to figure out how to hide the fact that you fell from the roof and maimed yourself." Phil said, standing up. He ran through the front door - which he'd left open earlier - and left Dan laying in the grass. Dan didn't have enough energy to tell him that he wasn't maimed, just minorly injured.

Once Phil got back, Dan decided that, as long as they both agreed that they were straight, he saw no problem with them maybe kissing every once in a while.

Ever since then, Dan was horrified by high places. Well, more like he was afraid of falling.

~~~ 

"Earth to Daniel" Phil called, snapping Dan out of his spiral of thoughts.

"I feel like I remember telling you not to call me Dan." He replied sassily.

"I don't recall." Phil shrugged. "and anyways, you were zoning out and you're gonna miss the whole reason we came here."

"Are you finally going to tell me what that reason is?" Dan asked, nothing the cigarette between Phil's pointer and middle finger.

"Yes, I might as well now," Phil sighed, "Though it ruins all of the mystery." He added dramatically.

"Tragic" Dan commented, taking the cigarette from Phil and blowing smoke into the morning air. The sky was glowing now, towards the horizon, and the stars were disappearing. That  _did_  seem a tragedy.

"To see the sunrise." Phil took his cigarette back. "I've always wanted to watch the sunrise in this place. In the tallest tree," He said.

Dan just smiled and gave a slight chuckle that sounded convincingly genuine.

"What's funny?" Phil asked.

"If I fall from this tree and die all because you wanted to see a sunrise, I will make sure to haunt you until your own death."


	11. Q&A?

Dear Anyone-Who-Is-Interested-In-This-Fic,

this chapter isn't a chapter! Sorry.

I was wondering if you guys wanted a Q&A?

I've seen some of my favorite authors do this thing where they do a little Q&A about the book and the writer. I'm always really interested in those.

So I was just wondering if you guys wanted me to do that. I'll explain what it is.

Basically, in the comments on this chapter you can ask any questions you have about the plot, the cover, the title, the characters, or even me. Here are some example questions:

What gave you the idea to write this?

What are your writing strategies?

What does the title mean?

Can you tell more about this character?

Do you have an outline for the future of this fic?

Can you explain chapter ___'s title?

What are your preferred pronouns?

Or anything else that you can come up with. And then next week, after I post the weekly chapter, I'll post a page where I have the questions and my answers formatted. I mean, if no one has any questions before then I'll just either wait until questions start cropping up, or I'll take the hint that you guys don't have any questions. Feel free to use the questions I used as examples, too. Anyways, yeah, thats it.

Thank you so so so much for reading and I hope you're enjoying the story!

Sincerely,

The Writer

 


	12. Blue Sunsets

Can't Get Enough - Basenji

 

_"I can't get enough of you"_

 

_"I can't get a hold of you_

_I'm falling into this again"_

 

_"Ooh, I wanna keep a hold of my heart"_

* * *

 

"Whats so special about a sunrise?" Dan asked, looking over at Phil, who seemed completely enthralled by the horizon line.

"Sunrises are beautiful. It's like spring every morning." Phil answered, his voice distant, like he was somewhere else.

"How do you figure?"

"Well in spring everything comes to life again, right? With the flowers and trees and shit that the cold weather ruined. That reminds me of sunrises because its like the day comes and wakes everything up. The sun paints the sky." Phil gestured to the clouds that were beginning to look slightly outlined with dark orange.

"Well if you're thinking about it that way, then it's also bringing death to the stars," Dan pointed out.

"Fucking pessimist" Phil muttered under his breath, chuckling.

"I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist!" Dan insisted

"You're a pessimist." Phil repeated.

Dan just shook his head.

(He was a pessimist.)

"Why are you so fond of sunrises?" Dan asked after they were quiet for a moment while the sun started creeping up. He really didn't see all of the intrigue.

"Why are you so fond of the night?" Phil answered with a question.

"I'm not 'fond of the night'." Dan retorted.

"Yes you are. And it's because you're a pessimist, too. A nighttime pessimist - the worst kind. The kind that  _likes_  the dark and  _likes_  being a pessimist even though it contradicts the very meaning of the word." Phil said, blowing smoke out in front of them.

"I'm a realist."

"Thats what they all say." Phil said in a falsely sinister voice.

Dan just rolled his eyes, leaning against the trees trunk for stability.

"So," Phil said after a few moments of them just watching the sun slowly appear. "I remember you saying something last night about Will Wattfort?" a churlish smile grew on his face.

"I hate you so much right now." Dan replied, his smile growing involuntarily.

"Ooooh, you're blushing" Phil teased, poking Dan's shoulder.

"I blush all the time, that proves nothing!"

"Ok fine, if you don't want to tell me how you ended up kissing Will Wattfort, that's your deal." Phil only said that because he knew that Dan would end up telling him.

"Ok ok, I'll tell you, jeez!" Dan liked pretending that Phil had pulled the truth out of him. It was an ongoing joke they'd always had.

He actually didn't say anything for a moment. And then....

"Ok, so, after I punched Dick - which was really weird by the way - I went upstairs to look for somewhere to cry. Because I always cry. I figured I was about to. Anyways, I found him making out with a girl in - get this - a closet." That was when Phil interrupted him first.

"No way!" He looked over, shocked, at Dan.

"Yup. And thats not even the best part-"

"Don't tell me that YOU went in there too" Phil's jaw dropped

Dan just nodded silently.

"Oh my god. He would've imagined. Dan and Will Watford end up in a closet together. Did Shane join you two?"

"Phil, we've talked about this, I'm pretty sure Shane is straight."

"Nope. No way. I've seen him looking at the boys soccer team. He might like girls, but he defiantly likes guys." Phil was stubborn on this topic.

"Ok, well, whatever. The point is, the girl left and he was like kind of drunk, but not too drunk, but he was pretty drunk, you know? Anyways, we need up, like, making out, I guess." Dan said, getting slightly bashful. He knew he had nothing to worry about, though. It was Phil.

"Look at you, Dan! Letting loose, and shit. Crazy." Phil said it as if he thought he'd never see the day where Dan actually did something.

"Well whatever, after a while he started crying and then we just talked for a while. I know a lot more about Will Wattfort now than I ever thought I would. Turns out he's pretty normal. Just a scared closeted kid with good taste in music. Though I guess not many people in this town have a good taste in music, so thats not really 'normal'." Dan joked.

"And I'm guessing thats when you came downstairs and demand that I drive you home?" Phil asked. "Which, by the way, was really hot."

Dan blushed. He was always blushing.

"Not exactly. After that Will decided to show me his room and we made out there for a while. Only made out though, we kept it P-G. Then we just talked a bit again and  _then_  I started heading downstairs. But before I found you I ran into Dodie Clark. You know, the girl with the music?"

"How could I not remember Dodie Clark? She's like the closest thing to 'cool' in this town other than you and me. She and I went to the theater once in tenth grade and she was so entranced with the songs that she completely forgot I was there and almost fell from our balcony seats when I tapped on her shoulder. That was the last time we really talked, I think."

"Right, well, she was full blown  _yelling_  at one of the football players, crying too, about how he's a 'complete piece of shit' for making fun of Jon. She was  _mad_ , I mean this guy was getting it. It was hilarious. This short, 5 something, small girl, yelling at the top of her lungs at a fucking seven foot guy who was cowering like a lost dog. It was poetic, truly."

"What had he said to Jon?"

"I don't know. Something about music, I think. I really couldn't understand half the shit she was saying. I admire her for it, though, I'll tell you that."

Phil didn't say anything at first, just laughed along.

"So," He started. "Will Wattfort." He dragged on the name, but his voice gave no indication to his feelings on the matter.

"Yup." Dan nodded. "What about it?"

"Nothing, its just... a surprise, I guess."

"What do you mean? We've been conspiring that he's gay since elementary school! This is totally not a surprise."

"No, I just mean... you and Will Wattfort. That happened. Thats the surprise."

Dan just rolled his eyes. He wasn't getting into this conversation again.

"Whats wrong with me and Will Wattfort?"

"Nothing, nothing, just, I don't know, I figured you'd aim for someone cooler." Phil commented, still looking forward to the sunset.

"Cooler? Like you, you mean?" Dan joked, elbowing Phil without detaching himself from the trunk of the tree too much. He was still scared to death of falling, even if he was distracted by Phil being all mystical in the pretty lighting.

"Ugh, come on, you know what I mean," Phil said, smiling and rolling his eyes.

"No, I really don't. Most of the time I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. No what about Will Wattfort makes him unworthy?"

"He's just such a nobody, you know?"

Dan actually did  _not_  know. As per usual, he didn't know what Phil was talking about.

"What do you mean?"

"He's just one of the nobodies. This town is crawling with nobodies. Nobodies and you."

"And what makes me  _not_  a nobody?" Dan asked, amused.

"You're alive." Phil said, matter-of-factly, as if it were a casual fact. "They're just living, but you're actually really alive."

"Thats so fucking cheesy Phil, whats gotten into you?" Dan asked, as if random cheesy-ness wasn't a normal thing for Phil.

"Well its true!" Phil said defensively. "Thats why  _you're_  my best friend and not Will Wattfort."

Dan just chuckled and they continued to watch the sun come up.

"And Will Wattfort can kind of be a dick." Dan added softly.

"How do you figure?"

"In 6th grade he called me weird because I cried when we talked about wars in social studies."

"And you're still holding that against him?"

"Of course I am!"

"Ok, well, you're not weird, for whats its worth." Phil said.

"I know.  _I'm not weird, I'm just different_. Thats what my mom would say."

"You're not different. You're revolutionary." He said it with a flourish in his voice.

"No, you just like to romanticize things."

Phil just shook his head. "Maybe. Or maybe I'm just better at seeing the truth."

"Oh, Phil," Dan said sadly, looking over the branches "All  _you_  ever see is poetry."

 


	13. Q and A answers

Thank you guys for all of the questions! <3

 

Q: I understand that bisexuality wasn’t really considered a thing in the 80s but Phil constantly says that he’s gay and has expressed not even the slightest attraction to the opposite sex. Why is that? Just wondering. - t.cmusic

A: I'm glad that you asked about this because this is actually a really big theme in the overall plot line. As someone who identifies bisexual I knew that I wanted to have this be a part of this story as soon as I started writing it. Phil always brushes off the fact that he basically only comes out to people as gay by telling Dan that its just because he doesn't want to have to do a bunch of explaining on the topic every time he comes out, but really a big part of it - though he doesn't want to admit it - comes from internalized biphobia. He mostly has this internal struggle because of his family having constantly oppressed him when he first came out. His brother would always tell him that he was gay and being bi wasn't even a thing and all of the classic biphobic things to say. And his parents always just acted like he'd never come out in the first place and would only refer to his future relationships as being with girls. So part of him, to rebel from his parents, just wished he was gay instead of bi. And then that way he wouldn't have to deal with his brother being so annoying all of the time too. Slowly this developed his biphobia, and this topic will be touched on throughout the story not only in the future of it but also in Dan's flashbacks.

 

Q: How do you outline a plot and characters for a story? Keeping in mind things like foreshadowing and avoiding plot hole's as much as possible aswell as making the personalities of the characters and their reactions to things make sense in accordance with the plot; realism I guess. Making character Arc's... Stuff like that. - Purpexula_A_Lyrica

A: This is a really good one! I always set down a lot of rules for myself before writing a book, and I know that sounds boring, but because I'm such a huge nerd and I'm obsessed with writing, its actually really fun. What I do first when I get an idea or inspiration for something is quickly write it all down and then I read over everything that I've written and decide how I feel about it and what the mood it. Then I think of how I want the aesthetic to be and that really helps with figuring out of the characters. By ~aesthetic~ I mean the feeling of the book and the vibes. So that leads into how I want the characters to act. And then after contemplating that, I create character profiles for any important character. This is actually really fun too. I make sure I have their whole name written out, their relation to other characters, how they look, how they act, things about their past, and how certain things effect them. This really really helps with plot holes because if I'm ever questioning anything, I just refer to this. As long as the character profile doesn't change, then the things about the character change and, viola, no plot holes about that character. Another thing to help with plot holes is that I always re-read the last chapter before I start writing the next one.

And now for the outline! I always put a lot of importance into an outline. I always make multiple word documents about each part of a story outline. I have one word document that has a detailed plan for where the story will end up and how it will get there. I have another one for certain scenes that I want to include. If I ever feel really inspired and want to write a certain scene, I don't let it stop me that that scene isn't supposed to happen for a while! This is what makes foreshadowing so easy. As long as I know whats going on in the future of the book, down to words that are used in certain scenes, I can allude to them. Thanks for the question, sorry that the answer is so long!

 

Q: how do you get the aesthetic so on point? I feel like that's my favourite thing about the book!  
i also really like dan and phil s messy relationship, it reminds of one of my friendships and even when I don't know how good is that (i mean, its pretty complicated) its nice to feel ours isn't the only friendship with blurried limits.  
oh, and last, preferred pronouns? -  starlightblood98

A: I absolutely  _love_  messing with aesthetic of stories! I brought this up for the last question, but basically, its all about writing things down as they come to you, and then perfecting them. So before I even start figuring out the characters, I make sure that I know how I want the book to feel and how I want the vibe to be. If I write a chapter and I don't feel the exact same vibe as I do for all of the other ones, I delete it right away and start over. I know that sounds harsh, but its actually not that bad with practice! Thats basically all that writing is - practice. Reading a lot and then writing a lot. Input and output. So the way I figure out these aesthetics is just from reading a lot of books and experiencing a lot of emotions and deciding how I want to display each of these emotions. This is also just a lot about your personal writing style.

As for the characters relationships, I  _love_  interpreting messy relationships in my stories. With this story its particularly easy to focus on that since the whole book is about their relationship and how complex it is. I love how Dan and Phil are in this au because its so angsty and so incredibly full of emotions from Dan's perspective, but from Phils its simple and its fun and its easy. But from both sides theres just so much love - even if they're both different kinds of love.

My preferred pronouns are she/her, and thank you for commenting a question!

 

 Q: Why is the title Quiet Rebellion? Did any thought go into it or did it just sound nice? - My friend irl

 A: Yeah, thought did go into the title, actually. At first I was thinking of calling it Blue Boys, for the reoccurring theme. Then I was going to call it Lost Stars to represent that Dan and Phil are two stars, shining in different ways (Phil in a more obvious showy way and Dan in his own way) and being so lost on earth with a bunch of other stars. And then I was going to call it Breathe for something that was going to put in the story, but I ended up scraping that idea.

In the end I landed on Quiet Rebellion thats kind of based on my existentialist beliefs. They're building their own little rebellion by just being together and just being teens, but in the end it'll just be a whisper in a world full of big and small rebellions. So it's kind of just to represent the whole rebellion aspect while honoring the fact that their rebellion really is small even if its  _everything_  in their eyes.

 

Thank you to everyone who asked questions!

 


	14. Princess Leia

(I'm not using Adrien's real age in this fic because I don't already know it and I'm not going to look it up because he deserves respect and privacy. He will be two years younger than Dan in this, so, sixteen. Enjoy the chapter!)

"Adrien is coming home today, so I can't do anything tonight." Dan already knew that Phil was going to suggest some far-fetched plan as soon as he climbed through his bedroom window.

"Well shit, I guess that ruins this once in a life time opportunity that I was planning on presenting to you." Phil replied sarcastically as he gently slid down the glass window behind him.

They had a whole Phil-comes-in-through-Dan's-window plan to throw off Dan's parents to not think that they hung out as much as they did. Better the they not get suspicious. When Dan's curtains were up, Phil was safe to come through. When they were down, he'd use the front door.

"Too bad, the famous younger brother is coming back from camp. And according to my mom, she and him have prepared a surprise for my dad and I." Dan retorted, sounding anything but excited.

"Well, sorry to say Dan, but I'm going out tonight without you, then." Phil feigned an apologetic tone.

"Maybe people will finally realized we're not joined at the hip"

Phil laughed in response. "Ah yes, the terrors of fifth grade torment. I don't know why they thought of that as such a big insult. I just found it funny, honestly."

Dan rolled his eyes and picked up his polaroid camera, already set up with film in it.

"Smile for the camera" He heard the click as Phil dramatically posed. Dan set the picture on his desk to let it develop.

Phil just wandered around Dan's room, looking through his bookshelf to his records to his movies, everything.

"Looking for something new?" Dan asked "You're out of luck. You already know everything that I have."

"No, just looking for inspiration."

"For what?"

"Poetry. Writing. I don't know. I usually find  _something_  in your room that'll inspire some sort of strange idea."

"Ah yes, you're classic romanticization of every day objects in my room. You could make a whole book out of a compilation of those poems. You could call it 'romanticizing Dan Howells room'. I'm sure it'd be a hit."

Phil rolled his eyes.

"I don't romanticize things, you just look at everything negatively." He stood his ground, sitting at Dans desk and opening his drawer with paper in it.

"Not true."

"We're not gonna have this discussion for the millionth time, Dan."

"I agree."

Dan laid down on his bed and looked at his ceiling, the cracks in it not phasing him anymore. When he was younger he used to thing every night that the ceiling would cave in while he was asleep. Until Phil started having sleepovers. Then he didn't get as scared anymore.

He heard Phil sliding the drawer shut, a sign that he'd left something for Dan to read later, and sat down on the bed at dan's feet.

"So why the sudden interest in going to this party?" Dan asked, willing the answer not to be Anthony.

"Not sure. Someone at the last party was really drunk and came up to me and told me about this one so I thought 'why not? whats the harm? maybe Dan will  beat someone up again and it'll make for a good story.'" Phil teased.

"Ha ha, you're hilarious."

"And you're good at beating people up" Phil shrugged. Dan was just glad that he hadn't said something like 'because Anthony will be there'.

"So, what'd you think your brother and mom planned as a surprise?" Phil asked, picking at Dans shoelaces.

"Nothing good. Nothing good can ever come from those two conspiring together. No way." Dan answered, still staring up at his ceiling. 

"Whatever it is, I hope it's blue enough to your standards."

"Are we talking color-blue or Dan-blue?" Dan asked.

"Dan blue. Always Dan blue."

"I thought we'd been over this Phil. Dan blue has too many definitions and no longer makes sense to use."

"Well now all of those definitions have mushed together in my head to make one thing." Phil said, moving to lay on his back next to Dan.

"And what does it mean then?" Dan asked curiously. He was sure that whatever it was would be vague and blurry.

Phil was silent for a moment before saying "Thats for me to know and you to find out."

He sounded smug. Happy with his answer. It took willpower not to look at Phil when he was smug, but Dan just smiled up at his ceiling. Being next to Phil was all about willpower.

~~~

"You  _what_?" Dans father demanded.

"A kitten! Oh isn't it adorable!" Dan's mom picked it up from Adrien's arms and cradled it.

"And it we got a black one so that it wouldn't get fur all over Dan's clothes." Adrien said mockingly, staring at Dan, who was still shocked.

"Dan, take Adrien's stuff upstairs and help him unpack, I'm going to have a talk with your guys's mother about this."

Sometimes Dan's father would talk to their mother as if she were a child. Dan hated that. But, like many things, it was out of his control, so he just pushed it to the back of his head.

"I can't believe that you and mom got a cat without telling dad at all" Dan shook his head with a disbelieving smile on his face. The familiarity of his brothers room greeted him in warm boughs of beige walls and an orderly bookshelf. He didn't go in there when his brother wasn't around, but they'd play cards together or just hang out when he was. They had a different connection than most siblings. instead of constant bickering, they just bonded over growing up in the same family dynamic. Neither of them spent too much time at home or with the family, so maybe that was the key. Spend too much time together and you're bound to hate each other, but otherwise you're good. "Do you think he'll actually let us keep it?" Dan asked incredulously.

"Oh, he has to. Mom already named it."

"Oh no. What'd she call it?"

"Unofficially, she's been calling it Leia."

"Oh my god."

"I know, I know. She said that she's overheard you and Phil talking about Star Wars and she thinks the name is 'beautiful' or whatever."

"Dad is gonna have a cow." 

"I know. It was all her idea." Adrien said, setting down one of his two camp bags on his bed and sitting down with a sigh. "She said it'd help bring the family closer together. Especially if I was in on it."

"Yes, the angel of the family, blessing us with a nice cat that matches my dark clothes." Dan joked, his voice light. Communicating with his brother was pretty easy. Not as easy as Phil, but still easier than with most people. If it wasn't, he'd have stuttered a lot more.

"Well we all know what it means when mom wants to do something to bring the family closer." Adrien sighed, opening his bag and starting to unpack. "She thinks something bad is going to happen to us soon. Like that time I got chicken pox and she thought I was going to die so she bought a trampoline for the back yard."

"Or when I sprained my ankle and she thought that I'd never be able to walk again, so she tried to get us all to go to disney." Dan chipped in with the family memories that they barely thought about anymore.

"I wonder what it could be this time." Adrien said sarcastically. They both knew it was Dan's last summer before he went off to college. In their mothers mind, this probably meant that she'd never see or talk to him again.

"Something wicked this way comes." Dan said, his voice lofty.

Adrien gave him a toothy grin and a side-glance, as if he knew something that Dan didn't.

"What?" Dan asked, lips breaking into a self-conscious smile.

"Oh nothing, it's just that I've only been here for about ten minutes and you already did that thing where you say something that Phil would say in a way that Phil would say it." Adrien addressed nonchalantly.

"Shut up, I do not do that!" Dan picked up one of Adrien's pillows and hit him with it, messing up his curls.

"Whatever, whatever" Adrien brushed it off, giggling. "Hey, where is Phil anyways? I assumed he'd be here when I showed up tonight." He changed the subject well. He learned from their mom, the expert of changing the subject.

"At a party. David's house, I think. Or Liza's maybe. They're at each others houses so often, no one really knows which is which anymore, I think." Dan answered, starting to unpack the bag that he'd brought up.

"Thats weird, people are going to start realizing that you guys aren't conjoined twins if you keep doing things separately." Adrien joked.

"Don't be a wiseass or you'll be unpacking your stuff by yourself," Dan warned.

Adrien laughed but didn't continue.

"Leia. I could get used to having a cat named Leia around." Dan considered.

"I'll admit, I've already started to feel like its ours. We picked it up from the pet store while mom was driving me here. I told her not to impulse by a living being, but she said she's been planning it for a while, so I went with it. She even bought food and a bed and researched all the kinds of necessities. She's committed, I'll tell you that."

"Crazy" Dan replied.

"Absolutely insane."


	15. Mr. Brightside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N: This chapter goes so well with the song that its almost a crime not to listen after reading it.)

Mr. Brightside - The Killers

_"Jealousy, turning saints into the sea_

_Swimming through sick lullabies, choking on your alibis_

_But it's just the price I pay, destiny is calling me"_

 

_"While he's having a smoke and she's taking a drag_

_Now they're going to bed and my stomach is sick_

_And its all in my head"_

 

_"I just can't look, its killing me_

_and taking control"_

* * *

"A cat. They got... a cat." Phil said over the phone, his voice slightly interrupted by static.

"A cat." Dan replied.

"I can't believe your mom got you guys a fucking cat without telling your dad." Phil sounded like he was in awe. Dan had to agree with that feeling.

"I know right. A fucking cat."

They had to stop talking for a solid five minutes just to laugh about the whole situation.

"And what'd you say they called it? Princess Leia?" Phil asked.

"Leia, yeah. But my dad said that he'd only agree to letting us keep her if he chose the name."

"Did he choose one yet?"

"Yeah." Dan refrained from saying the name, waiting for Phil to ask. He knew he was going to crack up as soon as he said it either way.

"Well, come on, whats the cats name?"

There was a pause over the phone for a beat.

"Greg."

"No way."

"Yes, Greg the female cat."

"Greg the fucking cat."

And then they laughed again. Dan had to lean against the wall so that he wouldn't keel over laughing. Not a lot happened in the suburbs.

"Why did he call it Greg?" Phil asked, incredulous and in hysterics.

"I don't know." Dan said, the laughter fading. "But I think it's just how he was as a person."

"Was?"

"Yeah. You know, before he got a stable job and married and a house in a cul-de-sac. Before all of this normalcy happened and washed his personality away."

"Thats pretty sad."

"Thats life."

"Yeah I guess."

"I think thats the person my mom fell in love with."

"Who?"

"The person who named a girl cat Greg."

"Do you think they're still in love?"

"Phil, I'm not even sure that they were ever in love."

"You think too much."

"Yeah I guess."

Neither of them talked now. But it wasn't an awkward silence, it was just a Dan and Phil silence, where they waited there in each others space until something came up for one of them to say.

And eventually, something came up.

"Wanna get drunk tonight, Dan?"

"Not really. But I can drive us a town over and  _you_  can get drunk at the one good bar in the area, and then I can drive us back." Dan suggested.

"And you're sure you're fine with not getting drunk?"

"Pretty sure."

"What about all of that thinking?"

"I can deal with it. I always have."

A short silence.

"Dan, have you ever gotten drunk in your life?"

"Don't you think you'd be the first to know? Hell, you'd probably know before me."

"Yeah, I guess. You know, its a great way to stop thinking."

"I like thinking."

"No you don't."

"No, I don't."

"Ok, I'll see you later."

"Bye Phil."

Static over.

~~~

"New jacket? I'm impressed, Daniel. You usually just wear the same ratty sweatshirt that the high school gives everyone at the end of each year. Oh, this years sweatshirt was so unfortunate though. Purple and yellow? I mean, who thought that'd be a good idea to mix? They should've stuck to grey and black like the other years, if you ask me." Phil rambled on, walking right past Dan as soon as the door was opened to him.

"I'd prefer that you call me Dan, Phil." Dan objected.

"Not true."

Ok, not true.

Technically, Dan  _did_   like it better when Phil called him Daniel. But only in certain context, to be fair.

"Right now, I'd prefer that you call me Dan." Dan joked, sliding off the jean jacket so that he wouldn't be teased by Phil any further. His mom had gotten it for him at a neighboring shop to the pet store.

"You're brothers out?" Phil asked. Dan nodded. He'd convinced Adrien to go for an afternoon stroll to Stacy's house. His crush. They weren't exactly dating, but everyone kind of knew that Stacy liked Adrien back. She'd told him to tell her as soon as he got back from camp, so it didn't take that much convincing to get Adrien out of the house for a while.

"Parents out for dinner?"

"Mmhm. Date night at Anthony's. Best pizza place in town."

"Ok, so we avoid Anthony's and Stacy's house. Pretty easy tasks. And your parents think you're staying the night at my house, right."

"Yup. You're parents?"

"Oh, they didn't even ask where I was headed. My guess is that they won't worry until I've been gone for three or four days, then they'd check in with you. But one night? We're safe."

"Ok. So lets go?"

"Sure."

They were getting into the car already when Phil followed up on that 'sure', though.

"We have to pick Gabbie up, though."

To his credit, he sounded slightly apologetic even as he said it. Well, ' _apologetic_ ' to Phil. Who was the least apologetic person in the world.

"Shit. Seriously, Phil?" Dan had brought his hand up to put the key in ignition but dropped his arm back down.

"I'm sorry! But she called me and asked if I wanted to do anything tonight and I said 'sorry I'm busy with Dan' and she 'so is it true that you're gay?' and so instead of explaining bisexuality to her I just told her to come along with us tonight and she can figure it out." Phil explained, rambling in that endearing way that Dan usually loved but was seriously hating right now. "And, I don't know, she was interested enough in me to give me a time and place to pick her up, so..."

"Ok, but Phil, she wasn't giving  _you_  a time and place to pick her up, she was giving  _me_  a time and place to pick her up." Dan tried to repress his jealousy and come up with logical reasons to be annoyed.

"I thought you wanted to go out tonight too! You can hook up with someone or something, you're eighteen, live life. Get drunk. We can call a taxi from the bar. I 'borrowed' my dads credit card. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if we used it to get home safely." Phil said suggestively, nudging Dan from the passengers seat.

"Thats not the point, Phil!" Dan protested, his voice getting more whiny.

"Then whats the point?"

"I don't know!"

"Who are you mad at then?"

"I don't know!"

"Well then lets go."

"Ok, fine!"

And before he could think about the conversation he just had, he was pulling out of the drive way.

~~~

Gabbie jumped into the back seat of the Ford Mustang, slamming the door shut a little too harshly.

"Oh, sorry." She cringed, looking at Dan - who already looked a little pissed off. "I'm Gabbie." She reached her hand between the front two seats, to which Dan responded by  turning the keys and starting up the car to pull out of the drive way.

"Ok..." She looked at Phil skeptically. Dan pretended not to notice Phil shrugging and rolling his eyes. "So, whats the plan?" Dan hated that Gabbie was acting like she was a part of this dynamic. He hated that, for tonight, she  _was_  a part of this dynamic.

"Dan and I know a bar down in Sycamore where they don't ID anyone. It's a little sketchy but theres always good music and its got a fun vibe." Phil explained, turning to face her. Dan wanted to point out that she should probably put on a seatbelt because you had to be pretty stupid not to, but Phil wasn't wearing his seatbelt either so he dropped it.

"I brought my ID incase." Gabbie mentioned, pulling the card out of her purse and holding it up, as if it was some sort of prize that she wanted to point out.

"Thats i-illegal t-to have." Dan said instinctively. He felt kind of bad about being so hard on her, but at least he hadn't used a rude tone or anything. His voice was completely void of emotion.

"What is up with you tonight?" Phil asked, turning to Dan before looking back at Gabbie. "He's usually not like this."

So Dan took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the steering wheel before speaking, not trusting his voice otherwise.

"S-sorry. B-bad sleep l-last night, I-I guess." He hoped that she wasn't making assumptions based off his stutter. Like that he was shy or nervous or never talked to people. She would be correct, but he still hated when people assumed that just because of a stupid speech impediment. At least it wasn't as bad as when he was younger. He used to stutter when talking to anyone. Now it only happened when he was with people that he wasn't particularly close to or when he was nervous. Both of those things came hand in hand, though. "I'm just a little t-tired."

Gabbie smiled politely but cast a sideways glance as Phil that she must've thought Dan couldn't see. She was probably already judging him. He didn't blame her.

Instead of getting annoyed at everything Gabbie said as she and Phil dove into banter and conversation, Dan put all of his focus on the dark road stretching out ahead of him. He knew this route by heart, even if he'd only taken it a few times.

~~~

Once they get there, Dan realized why Phil likes her. He resents it, but he realizes it.

It's almost strange how much of a parallel she is to Phil. She's completely fearless in all of her actions. She walks right into the bar like she owns it. No one questions her when she takes shots better than anyone else there, or when she asks for a beer straight after.

She was the kind of person who throws their head back in laughter and lets in take over their whole self. The kind of person who  _has_  friends, but doesn't  _need_  them. She has her own cigarettes and smokes them all the way through - unlike Dan, who takes a hit from Phil's every once in a while. Recently, more often than not. But still.

When a good song came on, she stood up and started dancing to it. And instead of staring at her all strange, people joined in. Almost everyone. Obviously Phil did. Obviously Dan didn't.

He just sat at the bar sipping a light beer and over thinking. Also, watching how Phil danced with Gabbie, which couldn't possibly be healthy for his mental health. Still, he couldn't look away. Mainly, he was just watching Phil. He indulged in watching Phil whenever he could. It was like the reward for keeping his hands to himself, allowing himself to watch Phil like that. Sometimes he felt like he was so obvious that it was impossible that other people didn't see it.

"Anything wrong, kid?" Dan had to do a double take for a second. Partially because he was minorly tipsy, but mostly because this seemed like a scene pulled from a  cheesy movie. The bartender asking him about his problems while wiping away something that someone spilled and as Dan stared at his forbidden crush.

"Oh, n-nothing, I-I'm fine."

Apparently, though, that peaked the bartenders interest though (someone who was  _way_  too young to be a bartender, by the way), because he stopped cleaning up the now-empty bar and looked up at Dan. Everyone was on the makeshift dance floor that Gabbie and Phil had created. The exact place that Dan's eyes kept traveling to.

"No one says 'I'm fine' if they're actually fine. They say 'I'm good' or 'I'm cool' and usually they sound way more convincing. No offense, man, but you don't sound convincing  _at all_. You sound  _super_  depressed. Like,  _wow_ , you're bad at pretending that you're fine."  He said insensitively, walking over to where Dan sat, still behind the bar.

Dan turned in his stool so that he was facing the man rather than Phil - who was very distracting when he was dancing.

"Thanks." Dan remarked sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

"Welcome." The guy replied, smiling. He seemed to completely miss Dan's blatant sarcasm. "My names Mike. You?"

"I'm D-Dan."

"Well, Dan, you want a re-fill?" He gestured to Dans empty glass, tucking away the rag he'd been using the wipe off the counter.

"I'll j-just take a-a coca cola. I'm driving."

"Smart. I see people stumbling out of here looking completely blind and getting behind the wheel. Never a good idea, I'll tell you that." Mike seemed like the kind of person who was going to pursue a conversation. Dan decided his strategy would be to just nod and hope that the guy would eventually drop the idea of being social.

"Well anyways, I noticed you staring at the friend you came in with." Mike looked up from where he was pouring Dan his soda. For a second he panicked that he was about to get into a bar fight. It'd never happened before, but he knew he'd never win. He'd never even have the courage to fight back. Then again there  _was_  that one time at the party... but that had just been a freak incident. But then again, the guy didn't look like he was threatening Dan in anyway. Just like he was bringing him up causally. Which was weird, because usually when people were going to call him gay they weren't being casual or just chatty. Usually they were going to try and get into a fight. Dan must have looked confused because Mike explained further

"That girl over there, with the guy that you guys walked in with."

_ohhhhh.... that makes sense._

"Oh, I-I don't l-like Gabbie. Trust me. I d-don't like Gabbie." He must've looked sufficiently grossed out because Mike backed off.

"Hm, guess not." He went back to cleaning glasses behind the bar and Dan focused in on the music playing, willing himself not to turn back around and watch Phil.

Bowie was playing. Let's Dance. Not Dan's favorite song, but he loved Bowie's music and none of his songs were lost on him. The lyrics always meant something. Phil agreed. He and Phil's minds would connect directly any time they just sat down and listened to a song.

Next thing Dan knew, he'd closed his eyes and was slightly swaying along with the song, sipping his coca-cola.

"Oh... you're a Bowie fan." Mike the bartender looked like he'd just had an epiphany. "So now I'm guessing that it was the other friend that you were looking at?"

"W-wait, w-what?" Dan froze and his eyes shit open to look at Mike the bartender. How he could tell that anyone was gay based off liking Bowie didn't make much sense to him, but then again there were plenty of stereotypes that he didn't catch on to until it was too late. He could probably attribute that to him never looking at the world around him or caring enough to notice what other people were gossiping about how. It took him a while to realize that a guy wearing makeup would be seen as gay. A great discovery to make in ninth grade when you're trying to repress being gay.

"It's nothing, just any guy who walks in here and has a good taste in music is always gay. Always. Almost without fail. My theory proves correct every time."

"W-well I d-don't - I don't k-know what y-you're-"

"Don't worry, I am too. Gay, that is."

At first, Dan was extremely relieved that Mike wasn't about to beat him up. Then he was just kind of shocked.

"What's his name?"

Dan didn't respond, just looked sheepishly at the counter top.

"Ok, well, how long have you liked him for?"

He choked on his drink.

"I-I dont - We're j-jsut friends, I-I can't,"

"Ok, but just because you 'can't' doesn't mean you don't. You were looking over there and blushing as red as a tomato. You like someone on the dance floor." Mike was defiantly going for the straight-coward thing. It really wasn't working for Dan. He just shook his head furiously and hoped that Mike would back down. He didn't.

"Ok, ok, whatever. Then lets  _hypothetically_  say that someone walks in here with,  _hypothetically_ , two people.  _Hypothetically_ , a boy and a girl. How would this  _hypothetical_  someone feel about the  _hypothetical_  boy?"

Dan felt extremely uncomfortable in this situation. But he felt himself slipping. Maybe it was the jealously that had been washing over him in waves all night. Maybe it was the slight buzz that he'd gotten from the two beers.  _Only two beers. God, how pathetic_. Gabbie wouldn't get a buzz from only two beers. She looked completely sober and she'd already taken a bunch of shots and then drank a beer aside from that.

Whatever it was, he felt himself wanting to tell this random bartender, Mike, how this hypothetical someone feels about this hypothetical boy.

"The h-hypothetical someone k-kind of likes t-the boy. T-the hypothetical boy." Dan said, filling in some blanks.

"Makes sense. Hypothetically. And I'm guessing that the hypothetical someone is jealous that the hypothetical boy is giving his hypothetical attention to the hypothetical girl?"

Dan nodded, avoiding Mikes eye contact.

"Alright, well just hang in there kid. I remember high school. That shit sucked. I was in situations like that hypothetical one  _all_  the time. You gotta roll with the punches."

At first Dan wanted to correct him and say that he was no longer in high school. Then he wanted to point out that if the bartender thought he was in high school should't he be IDing him? Then he remember where he was.

Then he wanted to say that it wasn't like he could just 'roll with the punches' with this. Loving someone who constantly had crushes on other people wasn't a punch. Loving Phil Lester wasn't a punch. It was a fucking beating. All the time. Like drowning in an olympic sized pool with only one place to come up for air, but that air has poison in it. Like hanging from a noose but never actually dying. It was like never being able to close your eyes and  _not_  see them with another person. Seeing supercuts of them with someone else.

No, it wasn't 'like' that. It  _was_  that.

And now Dan was sitting at this bar trying to nod along to the next song that had come up - Come On Eileen - but he couldn't stop seeing images flashing behind his eyes of Phil and Gabbie dancing. Of Phil and Anthony kissing. Of Phil and Dodie going to the theater. Of Phil with an infinity of people and none of them are him.

And now even though Dan wasn't facing them, he saw Gabbie's hands on Phil's chest and Phil handing her a cigarette and Gabbie kissing Phil and Phil's hands in her hair and everything was going to shit wasn't it? He was going insane and Phil was getting closer and closer to proving that he wasn't gay to this random girl that Dan was now so completely envious of.

He couldn't handle it anymore. It was tearing him apart.

So Dan, his head too crowded with unwanted thoughts to be anxious, walked through the dance floor and made a beeline for Phil. He got tunnel vision and just walked straight up to his, not able to get distracted by anything.

He took his keys out of his pocket and handed them to Phil as soon as he got to him, who struggled to catch the keys before they hit the ground.

"I'm getting a cab." And that was that. He was already speed walking to the door.

Once he got to the pay phone, he realized that he didn't pay for his coca-cola. He didn't care. He couldn't close his eyes anymore. Not when all he would see were pictures of Phil with  _her_  flying around his mind. He couldn't breathe properly. He was shaking as he hit the numbers to call a nearby cab. He had it memorized by heart. It was cool night, but he was breaking into a sweat just standing there.

Finally the cab arrived, without his memory of having even spoken on the phone, Dan jumped in on auto-pilot and told the driver where to go.

He wasn't at all conscious in this present time or place. He was seeing Phil and Gabbie back at Phil's house, in his bedroom.

He was suddenly worried that he'd throw up in the back of a cab. He really didn't want to be the guy that threw up in the back of a cab.

~~~

When Dan got home, he stumbled around in the dark for a while before giving up on turning the lights on. He walked up the stairs, almost falling a few times. If anyone saw him right now, they'd think he was completely drunk.

They clearly had no idea how intoxicating it was to be in the mind of an over-thinker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> refer to notes at beginning


	16. Thought Process

 

Turn Up The Radio - OK Go

_"I want it loud as hell_

_I want the walls to melt_

_Cause I've got to lose myself tonight"_

 

_"You know it's always just inches shy_

_But everything is just right_

_Everything is blue sky_

_But how huge that divide_

_And the hungrier the ghost_

_The more it opens wide"_

* * *

 

Dan didn't remember crying last night, but he must've. His eyes were red and puffy when he looked in the mirror the next morning. Also, he had no reason to believe that he hadn't cried. Statistics would show that Dan cried most times that anything happened, so why would last night be any different.

He was groggy and tired, but luckily he hadn't had enough to drink that he'd have a hang over. God, but the thought of Phil talking to him about how great Gabbie was already started giving Dan a headache. He didn't even know what time it was, but it was too early for this.

Apparently it'd been around ten to eight, because his alarm clock went off about ten minutes later. Why his alarm clock was set, Dan had no clue. But he got a pretty good idea what was going on when he went downstairs to see that his mother had made breakfast and his father was sitting in front of a huge stack of pancakes at the table with the newspaper in his hands.

"It's the damn Russian spies, they know everything about our government and we aren't doing a single thing about it!" Mr Howell complained, slapping his newspaper down on the table beside him.

"Well, honey, why don't you do something about it, then?"

to this, Dans dad just replied with "Oh, Mary. Don't be ridiculous." Though he never quiet specified what was ridiculous about it, so Dans mother just looked over at Dan and shrugged her shoulders.

In this exact moment, Dan was reminded just how tired he was of his dad.

"Did you set my alarm?" He asked, sitting across from the man who  _thought_  he was raising his son.

"No, actually that was your mother." His dad said, taking a sip of his coffee.

"We've barely seen you this summer, Dan!  You've been off with your friends and your dad and I have been going out for dinners and such. Now that Adrien is back, we should be spending some time together as a family." Mary leaned down and kissed her sons forehead, setting down a plate of smoking pancakes in front of him.

"You say 'friends' as if he has more than one." Adrien teased, walking in with perfect timing. "They set my alarm too."

"This was your moms idea, not mine, boys." By the way their father said it, it was obvious that he thought it was a bad idea.

"I think thats great, mom." Dan said, challenging his dads ideals. "Just not for today." He was hanging out with Phil today.

"Yeah, sorry mom. I've got a date with Susie. We're going for ice cream." Adrien said, smiling and clearly looking for some attention. Dan laughed inwardly. He and Adrien were such polar opposites.

"Susie? I thought you and Stacy were dating?" And clearly, their mom had no clue how dating and young high school crushes worked.

"No, mom, Stacy and I  _like_  each other. We're not dating yet. But hopefully me going on this date with Susie will push Stacy to say yes to me while she can, because now she'll think that if she doesn't say yes, I'll have Susie. Like, as a backup. But I don't actually have Susie as a back up because, one, I don't like her like that, and two, because she likes Kyle."

"I won't even attempt to understand this logic." Mrs Howell decided, going back to her pancakes. "I guess you boys can do what you want today, as long as we have breakfast together now and do something as a family tomorrow. Like dinner or the aquarium."

"Sure mom."

~~~

"Yeah, my parents literally woke me up at like eight AM just to eat breakfast. And my mom used way too little sugar in the pancakes too. Wasn't even worth it."

"Aw. I love your mom, she's great."

"You just say that because she pretends not to notice when you noticeably sneak in."

"Maybe so, but its still a valid reason."

Dan just rolled his eyes and stifled a smile and leaned his head back against the base of the tree he was sitting against.

It was an airy day out. Some mist hung in the air and it almost felt like everything was just paused.

But, of course, nothing could be perfectly calm without Dans intrusive thoughts flying through his brain at random like a wrecking ball and ruining things for him. So now he was thinking about Phil and Gabbie and how he should probably ask Phil about how last night went no matter how much he didn't want to.

"Sorry I was weird last night, but the way. I started feeling kind of sick so I decided it'd be better to just go home." Dan mentioned, knowing that Phil would never actually get annoyed at him for something like that. Or ever really. It was hard to see a situation in which Phil wasn't content with Dan - which would seem like a pleasant thought, but that had been a truth in Dan's life for so long that the happy-factor of it had worn off by now.

"It's no problem." Phil spoke through the cigarette that he'd just put between his teeth, lighting it in an un-safe way.

"So, how... how did it go with Gabbie?" Dan asked hesitantly, testing the waters.

"Well," Phil replied, smiling mischievously. "She doesn't think I'm gay anymore." He said, smoke billowing out of the cigarette. And first Dan felt a pang in his stomach. The twinge of getting a 'he's-not-yours' reminder. But then he thought about something that he hadn't brought up in a while that made his heart hang a little lower. Phil always seemed to avoid coming out as bisexual. Now Dan was determined to get the conversation to that aspect of this situation.

"Ok, so did she give you any trouble for being bi, or did you just let her believe that you're straight?" Dan asked, getting to the point much faster than he usually did.

Phil gave the expected reaction of his easy-going smile faltering a little bit.

"The second one." He was forcing sounding casual. Dan could tell.

"Why?" Dan pressed, trying to look Phil in the eye. This would be no use, obviously, as Phil had mastered the art of avoiding eye contact ever since his relationship with his family had gotten rocky.

"I don't want to get into this." He sounded exasperated. Phil, usually energetic and awake and the definition of alive, like he constantly has stars in his eyes, sounded exhausted and exasperated. He started lighting a second cigarette before even putting out his first.

"Too bad,  _I_  do want to get into this," Dan persisted.

"Just drop it, Dan. Seriously."

"No. Tell me why you always come out as gay or straight." 

"Umbrella terms, Dan, umbrella terms."

"Nope. It's more than that, Phil. I'm not leaving this. Why?"

"Just because, Dan! I don't know!" He was raising his voice.

"Yes you do. I've tried to bring this up before but you always get away from it. I'm not letting you get away from it this time. Talk to me, Phil."

Seconds ago, Phils temper had started slipping, but now it looked like he was falling back into the uncharted territory of 'tired'. His cigarette was dangling from his lips and Dan wished he could kiss him.

"It's just... I don't know, its hard." Now this was  _defiantly_  uncharted territory. Phil rarely ever made his voice go quiet. Barely ever let himself look small. He liked having the ball in his court, being in charge of a situation.

"I know, Phil. I get it. I mean, I've never  _really_  come out yet, but everytime things come up, I just-"

"No, Dan its different. Jesus, it's so different coming out as bi," Phil interrupted, seeming to gain some composure again. "It's different than coming out as gay."

"How so?"

"I don't know. I don't really think about it. I try not to think about things like that."

Dan knew exactly what it was like to not want to think about things. Unfortunately, he had no clue how to actually prevent himself from thinking about things.

"Maybe it's because people are predictable when you come out as gay." Phil said, picking up the conversation again. "When you're gay, they either dislike you or they're cool with it. Sometimes theres a middle ground. But its like, if I come out as straight to a straight person, they're gonna accept it. If I come out as gay to a gay person, they're gonna accept it. But if I come out as bisexual to either, I have no idea whats coming next. If they're straight, they probably will just be confused and not really think its a thing. And if they're gay they could hate me. They could be confused. They could be fine with it. But there have been so many times where I've come out as bi in an environment where I thought I was safe - with guys I knew to be gay, or hooking up with some guy - that turned into violent situations. And I don't really know why. And then theres my brother. 'pick one, pick one', repetition is like the most aggressive way to bully someone. And then people who are neutral will usually end up just calling me gay or straight anyways. So yeah, it's harder to come out as bi than it is to come out as gay. At least for me." Phil was speaking really gently and Dan found himself crawling over to the tree that his friend was sitting against.

He took the cigarette from Phil lips and kissed him lightly, putting out the little spark on the side of the tree. Phil looked so lost, staring at the grass like it was the sky. People stared at the sky because it was pretty. People stared at the grass because they didn't have the energy to stare anywhere else.

"Sorry," Dan said. "Sorry that you have to go through that, not sorry that I asked." Dan clarified. "Thanks for telling me. And you should come out however you want to."

Phil rested his head on Dans shoulders, eyes studying their beat up sneakers.

"Thanks for asking."

~~~

Thinking. Dan hated it.

Because even when he did all of the things that you were supposed to do to stop it, it never stopped.

He had done all of the things he was supposed to do.

1\. He talked to Phil about what he was thinking about (ok well maybe he avoided that one by steering the conversation elsewhere, but it had to count for something that he'd mentioned  _her_  name.)

2\. He'd put on music to distract himself (granted, the music was pretty angsty and melodramatic. The kind of music that was supposed to make you think. But it still should serve as a distraction)

3\. He went out to get some fresh air (Then again, how much did that one count when all you were doing was sitting in your backyard with a radio playing angsty melodramatic music)

4\. He tried crying it out (But this wasn't different form his normal schedule, so he wasn't sure if that would do anything, but he hadn't really done it to stop thinking, he did it more because he couldn't stop it form happening.)

5\. He left the music and went for a walk. That one seemed foolproof. He could pay attention to the trees or the night sky and the stars or something. It happened to work the least because everything just lead back to exactly what he was trying to avoid: Thinking.

Thinking about Phil. Thinking about Phil and Gabbie. Thinking about Phil and Anthony. Thinking about Phil's broken glasses. Thinking about that night a the party. Thinking about Bowie and his music and how no one believed him when he said he was bisexual. Thinking about Phil crying and how that never happened. Thinking about his curly hair and freckles. Thinking about how he'd never look as beautiful as the people who Phil liked. As the people who liked Phil. Thinking about Phil's pale skin and fake black hair. Thinking about Phil's soft lips. Thinking about the past. The past that never seemed content with being the past. It just kept bubbling up in Dan's mind, pushing itself to the surface, to the present.

Thinking about the past.

~~~

"Come on, Dan. Everything about being fifteen sucks except for the rebellious part. I mean, really, whats the point of being fifteen if you're not going to be rebellious? I can't be fifteen and not dye my hair without my moms permission Dan. By sixteen its expected and no longer rebellious, any older and its just pathetic. Fourteen I was too nervous. But fifteen... fifteen is perfect for this."

Dan was still iffy on it. Phil hadn't even told his parents that they'd be doing it. They didn't even  _know_  how to dye hair. And what color would Phil want to dye it?

Surprisingly, just black. Dan figured he'd want it bright blue or purple or green, but that proved to be wrong when they went to the store and Phil went straight for the black hair dye.

"It'll show up best" was his excuse. Dan had his own idea that Phil was just too self conscious to do any other color, though.

"Ok lets get some music on." Dan could already tell that they were going to make a mess of Phils parents bathroom. Phil plugged in the radio and pressed play on "I Wanna Be Sedated" by The Ramones, handing Dan a pair of plastic gloves. "You're gonna need these so that you don't stain your hands for life. I heard that's what happens."

"Clearly if you actually believe that, you're not smart enough to make hair-color level decisions, Phil."

"But thats the whole point, Dan."

Three hours and two 'I just dropped permanent black hair dye on your parents white tile bathroom floor' freak outs later, Phil was making out with Dan and holding his hands behind his back so that he wouldn't accidentally touch anything else and dye it black and letting his hair dry.

"Phil, we should wash it out now" Dan spoke up between kisses.

"Oh come on, whats the worse that could happen if he just leave it in for a few minutes and keeping doing this?"

"Well, your hair could turn purple or blue, according to the box, and you could possibly go bald."

"Ok, washing it out it is." Phil said decidedly, letting go of Dan's hands.

And after thirty minutes of washing and blowdrying, all of it interrupted at random moments for deep kisses, Phil had black hair. Actual black hair. Dan was freaking out and Phil was saying "I don't know, I guess I thought it'd be a bigger change. Looks cool though."

Dan loved it.

~~~

The past was the most annoying place to be. Especially when it made him miss someone that he could easily call up and invite over if he just went home. Then again, his family would probably think that was weird as it was 10:30 at night.

There was one thing on the list of things to stop one from thinking that Dan hadn't tried yet. There was always drinking. Drinking to forget, but it always seemed to have a weird effect of making Dan remember. Then again, he'd never tried getting  _drunk_. The real kind. Not the buzzed kind. He wondered how it would feel. He wondered if it'd have the desired effect of taking away everything. All of the thinking.

~~~

Apparently, step six that Dan had just improvised of 'going to the nearest alcohol-selling place and paying some old guy to buy you two six packs of beer' to make all of the thinking go away didn't work. It was even worse than step five of just walking around. Drinking made him think of Phil even more. And now he was in the forest and he wished Phil was with him. And now he was in the first and drunk and he wished Phil was with him. And now he was walking to Phil's house, drunk, and he wished Phil was with him.

And now Phil was with him and for some reason he looked concerned. He didn't have a cigarette though. Usually when Phil looked concerned, he had a cigarette. Usually Phil had a cigarette. It was such a Phil thing.

But now Phil was talking and Dan hadn't been paying attention to what he said.

"What?"

For some reason, the word didn't sound quite right coming from Dan's mouth. It was warped. Weird.

"Are you ok, Dan? Never mind, I'm taking you to your house, ok?"

And now they were at Dan's house and Phil was trying to soundlessly get Dan in through the one story high window into his room because the front door was too loud.

And Dan had no idea how Phil had gotten so strong that he could practically carry Dan while he scaled a wall to get in through a window. Ok, Dan was climbing it mostly by himself and it was a pretty low window, but still, Phil looked strong. Like Superman. More like Batman, actually.

"Phil, why do you look like Batman?"

"Dan, just don't fall, ok? Here, climb in through the window, and try to land on your feet."

So Dan did that. He remembered hearing people talking about how they could sober up if they had to, like when they were in a serious situation. While either Dan wasn't in a serious enough situation, or he was too drunk. But he couldn't pull himself out of this weird light airy feeling.

He gracefully rolled into his bedroom through the window. That was how he thought it had gone, at least. Based on Phil cringing and shushing him, he hadn't been as graceful as he thought.

And now Phil was pulling up the grey and black and white checkered comforter onto Dan and laying in bed next to him. Dan curled up to Phil's side and kissed his cheek.

"Thanks Phil." He whispered.

And then he fell asleep.

And that was Dan's night.

Too much thinking.

Too much drinking.

Possibly too much everything. Except for too much Phil, because Dan could never get too much Phil. He was pretty sure that he'd never get enough Phil.

 


	17. While We're Still Young

8TEEN - Khalid

_"Lets do all the stupid shit that young kids do_

_its me and you"_

 

_"Your love seems to cut me deep, the sharpest_

_You'll always have a part of me"_

 

_"Because I'm eighteen_

_And I still live with my parents_

_they're not like yours_

_yours are more understanding"_

* * *

 

7:00 AM. That was when Dans alarm clock went off. That was the exact moment that he swore his brain was going to explode from that horribly loud noise. Except for instead of turning it off, he just put his pillow over his ears and hoped it would go away, because Hangover Dan had few to no logical thoughts.

7:15. That was when Adrien walked into Dan's room and turned his alarm clock off for him.

"You should come downstairs soon, mom wants to do a family day today."

8:05. That was when Dan actually got out of bed. Kind of.

He sat up, at least, and then stayed sitting there for about ten minutes because he figured that if he waited long enough, the headache would go away. He was wrong.

And it was only when he saw the banana and slice of bread on his desk with a little note that he couldn't read from his bed that he partially remembered what had happened the night before.

He didn't remember all of the little details, but in all seriousness, he didn't want to. The big details were enough to make his cheeks flush red with embarrassment. He really hoped that the little details didn't include him telling Phil something that he shouldn't have. But he easily could have because all of those secrets that he constantly held from the world were always bubbling at the surface, waiting for Dans guard to be down so that they could spill over. Usually, Dan could control these excess emotions and turn them into tears before they became words that he'd regret saying. But if he had said them last night, he wouldn't remember. And that terrified him.

But why would Phil leave him a banana and a slice bread with a note if he had said something that he hadn't meant to say. That comforted him a little. Not enough to minimize his throbbing headache, but maybe enough to sooth his anxiety slightly for the time being.

_'hangover food._

_\- Phil'_

And Dan prayed than a banana and a slice of bread would be enough to fix this problem, because god knows Dan had way too many problems to deal with already.

A small problem that he'd have to deal with in the near future being his moms loud and peppy voice that was sure to face as soon as he set foot in the kitchen for breakfast. 

8:20. That was when Dan had finished his 'hangover food' - which hadn't worked very well - and was about to crumple up and throw away the paper Phil gave him, but noticed Phil's handwriting on the back.

_'City trip today._

_Let's go._

_Also I'm inviting Anthony.'_

The last line was a little disheartening, but Dan still felt the familiar buzz of the city echoing in his memory. The familiar buzz of Phil in the city. The air of unpredictability that they both held - Phil and the city - mixed with how busy the city always was and Phil's erratic way of going through life, it always made their trips to New York City seem manic.

"Sorry mom, can't spend the day. Phil's got something important." Sure, Dan felt slightly guilty rushing through the door without even looking into the kitchen. Sure he figured it would've been nice to follow through with his promise to spend more time with his family. But thinking of Phil going to the city with the seat on the train occupied by Anthony instead of Dan made that go away.

He'd just tossed on a jean jacket, black jeans and a white t-shirt. That was good city apparel, right? Considering that he had no clue what they'd be doing, Dan figured it was a safe enough place to land, clothing-wise.

~~~

"I figure we go tonight." Phil stated, as soon as Dan pulled up into his driveway on his bicycle. Phil sat, nonchalantly, on the side walk, legs crossed. He was in his swim trunks and a t-shirt.

"Sure." Dan was used to Phil spontaneously creating plans and then formulating them along the way. "And until then?"

"Until then, I figured we could go sneak into Mrs. Elderwhicks pool. And then get ice cream at Whitey's. You know, the summer classics."

Oh the memories they had in Mrs. Elderwhick's pool.

"Is she gone to Italy yet?" Mrs. Elderwhick was Phil's second to next door neighbor. She was in her early thirties and looked like she was in her mid-twenties. She lived alone, visited her family in Italy every summer, and had a small and crappy pool in her backyard that was always as cold as Dan imagined the waters would be at the base of Mount Everest.

"No, but she's usually gone from eight to eleven everyday, so I say we risk it."

"You know I hate risks."

"Yeah, but you take them anyways."

"You're so annoying."

"You're so blue."

Dan rolled his eyes and got off his bike, sitting next to Phil on the sidewalk.

"The hangover food did nothing, by the way." He mentioned, noting his irritable state.

"Yeah, I know, it never works for me either." Phil replied casually.

"Well then why'd you leave it there?"

"It's part of teen culture. You know, getting drunk, then trying to cure the hangover the next day with useless tactics."

Dan just rolled his eyes again. He did that a lot around Phil.

"Do you think teen culture is different in London?" Dan asked, laying down on the grass behind him.

"I think teen culture is different a mile from here. But I don't think its different enough to not include hangovers. Same goes for London."

"Well shit. I was planning on leaving hangovers behind when we go there."

"Well shit, I'm not going back."

"Oh come on Phil, London would be great. We could drink tea with the queen."

"I prefer coffee, and I'm pretty sure that random civilians in London don't just go and drink tea with the queen."

"Well then we won't be random civilians. We can be famous. I'll do whatever I do really well and you'll do whatever you do really well."

"That wouldn't work, because I've decided that I want to be a poet, and famous poets aren't famous until they're dead."

"Well that really throws a wrench in our plan, since I was just going to be famous by association to you."

"Guess we can't go then," Phil shrugged, turning to face Dan.

"We'll figure something out." The sun was hitting Phil in the eyes and Dan reached a hand up to pull Phil down for a kiss. It was risky, since they were out in public, but it was early and no one was out. A half-risk. For people who weren't cowards but were't exciting enough for a full risk. For people who weren't willing to just throw caution to the wind, but were ok with a little bit of a thrill. For people like Dan.

People like Phil were made for the full-risks.

"Mrs. Elderwhick's place?" Phil asked, pulling away from Dan slightly. Dan hated when Phil did that. Only pulled away an inch so that his lips were right there, tauntingly so.

"Sure."

~~~

It was summer. The sun was blazing hot and beating down on the pools water. How was it still this freezing cold? The world was a mystery.

Another mystery was how Phil could walk right down the pool steps into the water without hesitation, while Dan was still shivering at just the thought of it.

Phil was already in his swimsuit but Dan had insisted that if he went back to his house for even a second, he'd be forced into a 'family day', and he'd rather go swimming in his boxers.

"Come on Dan, don't be a coward." Phil jeered, splashing water in Dan's direction. None actually landed on him, but it was enough of a threat to make Dan take yet another step away from the pools edge.

"I'm not a coward."

"You literally just cowered away. Where is this argument coming from?"

"Shut up, the water is cold."

Phil rolled his eyes - Dan wasn't the only one guilty of this habit - and swam towards Dan.

"Why do you even agree to come here if you're never going to get into the pool."

Dan wanted to disagree with he fact that he always ended up getting in the pool for the lats few minutes of them being there, but the truth was that he only agreed to go to see Phil in his soaking swim trunks.

So instead of saying anything just just sat down at the edge of the pool where Phil was and eased his legs below his knees into the water, wincing the whole time, as if it were the worst thing he could possibly imagine experiencing.

"You're so dramatic," Phil chuckled, as if he wasn't the most dramatic person Dan knew.

"So, why today. Why today for the city?" Dan didn't expect to get a real answer. Most of the time when Phil made plans like this, there was no reason behind it at all. He didn't expect Phil to float onto his back in the pool and say "Because you need it."

"What do you mean I 'need it'?"

"You're getting to be too blue. Too blue for these boring suburbs. We need to break you out of here. Get you somewhere that can accommodate to your blue-ness." Phil said casually, closing his eyes to block out the sun.

"All of this blue terminology annoys me." Dan hoped Phil could hear him, even though he looked like he was a million years away when he was relaxing in the pool as if it weren't below zero.

"Good, it's supposed to." He replied with a smug smile.

"You know if you want to get me somewhere to accommodate to my blue-ness you could just agree on my plan to run away to London." Dan said subtly, crossing his arms.

"Nope. Only I get to decide where you're blue-ness fits in the world. For example, one place where it fits in is...." Phil trailed off dangerously and started swimming towards Dan again. Dan wasn't sure where he was going with this but it didn't end well for him. "In the pool."

and before Dan knew it, Phil's hands were on his hips and he was being picked up and pulled into the pool. Not the greatest way to go from the extremely hot sun to freezing cold waters.

"I hate you so much for that!" Dan screeched, his voice reaching octaves higher than he knew possible, as he scrambled for the pool's edge to clamber out.

"Don't even think about it." Phil grabbed his ankle before Dan got too far and pulled him back.

"Now you're just holding me hostage in Mrs. Elderwhick's pool. I'm pretty sure that's illegal under some law." Dan pointed out through shivering teeth.

The water was actually warmer once he was all the way in, but there was no way in hell that he'd admit that to Phil, who was now staring a water-splashing war.

~~~

The whole pool thing had been a good idea, in theory. They ended up having fun. What, with Phil randomly reciting poetry and Dan's constantly dramatized complaining, they were right at home in each others spaces. Plus, pool takeouts were always nice.

But then, in hindsight, maybe they should have had a little patience with Mrs. Elderwhick and waited until she was off to Italy. As it turned out, Phil's calculations about her summer schedule were quite off.

Dn wasn't exactly sure what time it was when he suddenly heard "WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY POOL!" being screamed at him from behind a sliding glass door, but it couldn't have been eleven yet.

"Shit." Phil reacted first, dashing out of the water before the young neighbor had even slid open the door. Dan, on the other hand, froze like a deer in headlights for a good two seconds. Two seconds, which stretched into two hours in his mind.

But then Phil pulled him out of the water and he grabbed his clothes from the grass and ran to the fence as fast as he could.

Dan wasn't going to join the sprinting events in Track yet or anything, but apparently youth mixed with panic mixed with spiked adrenaline made for an extremely fast Daniel Howell. He practically jumped over the fence in one leap.

Ok, that wasn't true, but he made it over fast.

"I'm calling the police!"

You'd think that the young neighbors would be the nicer ones, but not in this case. Not at all. Mrs. Elderwhick held no remorse.

Phil was only in front of Dan by a little bit when they ran through the next neighbors lawn and then hopped  _that_  fence to get to Phil's backyard. Only then did they stop.

"Shit, I had no clue she'd be back," Phil laughed.  _Laughed_.

One of his strange abilities was to look back at an incident and laugh at it no matter how recent. There was no 'too soon' where Phil Lester was concerned. Maybe it was because he was so laid back. Or maybe he was just insane. But either way, his laugh had always been contagious, and today was no exception.

So after they'd laughed enough, Dan put his clothes back on over his underwear and they scaled the wall to get into Phil's second story bedroom. Had they had to have run any further to get away from Mrs. Elderwhick, they would've been too tired to do even that. Dan and Phil didn't spend a lot of their spare time exercising.

"Ok, first order of business," Phil declared as soon as they'd made themselves comfortable facing each other sitting cross-legged on his carpeted floor, "Get Anthony on board with the plan."

Dan fought the urge to roll his eyes and instead just added some completely necessary and helpful commentary.

"Sure, I guess."

Phil didn't pick up on his annoyed tone.

"Then you and I can just hang out until... nine? I'd say nine is a good time to leave. The train ride will take twenty minutes, if it's not delayed, and then knowing us we'll probably take an hour to settle on a place. Ten thirty sounds like a good place to start the night. WHat'd you say?"

Dan just nodded along, as always. Phil's job was to be the planner, Dan's job was to go along with it and have fun.

"In the mean time we can play some video games, lunch at Ruby's, hang out in the park. Should be a decent day."

~~~

And so they called Anthony and he - unfortunately - said that he'd love to go into the city them. Dan was grumpy at first but then they started playing video games. Dan won almost every time. 

He stole Phil's crappy camera to take random pictures of stuff too. Like Phil's determined facial expressions while he played the one player games. Or the colorful video game controllers in the murky lighting. Or, one of his new favorites, Phil sitting across from him, cross legged, expelling smoke through his cigarette and looking nonchalant and pretentious.

"So, you're getting more serious about the whole writing thing now?" Dan asked, taking the camera down from his face and looking Phil in the eyes.

"Yeah, I guess. I mean, I've always been into it. I know I'm going into college undecided, but I'm thinking that maybe after my first year I can major in english or something. Ever since our ninth grade english teacher, Mr. Dwight, quoted Allen Ginsberg to me and tried to twist it into something wrong, I just feel like it's my responsibility to show what Ginsberg was  _actually_  trying to convey." More smoke billowed through the room.

"And what was he saying?"

"Well, the full quote is 'Concentrate on what you want to say to yourself and your friends. Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness. You say what you want to say when you don't care who's listening.' Which is, I think, really good advice. But Mr. Dwight cut it down to 'you say what you want to say when you don't care who's listening' and tried to make it seem like Ginsberg was talking about someone who was brash and spoke without thinking. This was when he had held me back after class to talk about my 'loud opinions'. Anyways, that just really annoyed me. I feel like I owe it to the world to create more Allen Ginsberg poetry. Except for in my own way. Phil Lester poetry." When Phil talked about poetry he always seemed his most put together, mature, wise self.

"Thats nice. All I want to do is photography and I don't even know why. I don't think I have a reason, I just like it." Dan commented, turning the camera over in his palm and feeling suddenly inadequate.

"I'm sure you have you're reasons. You probably just haven't found them yet." Sometimes Phil spoke and Dan had no clue what he was saying. In these cases, he just stayed quiet and nodded along.

After more video games, they went to Ruby's and drank milkshakes and ate fries and complained about the government and how annoying and secretive it was.

Then they walked back to their neighborhood and Dan took pictures of random things like his feet on the sidewalk or a leaf on a tree, and they complained about their parents and how passive aggressive and boring they were.

Then they got to their spot in the small woods if the suburbs and Dan finally brought up something to complain about that was real.

"Phil, sorry that I drank too much yesterday."

"It's ok. I do it all the time."

"Sorry that I made it your responsibility."

"You didn't make it my responsibility, I did. As soon as I decided to be your friend, I made drunk-Dan my responsibility. Thats how it works."

"Ok, well now that I have all of the sorry's out of the way, can we talk about it?"

"You can talk about it. I'll listen."

"Thanks." Dan had a lot of things to say about what had happened. About why it happened. About how sacred he was of it all. Maybe he was a coward after all.

"Phil, I think that I think more than the average person."

"Of course you do. I've known that about you since the first day we met and you asked me what my theories on the afterlife and a higher power were. At age seven."

"Yeah, but I think it's bad. Like... I think  _too_  much. Some times I think my head will just burst. I just can't stop worrying or contemplating or feeling things and thinking about them,  _all the time_. Thats why I drank too much yesterday. I just wanted to not be thinking. And it worked, I guess. Form what I remember. I wasn't thinking as much. At least not about the usual stuff."

"I know, Dan. I know."

"You know that the drinking made it stop or you know that I can't stop thinking?"

"You can't stop thinking. I know."

"Phil, some times it scares me how much I think."

"How much you think scares me too, Dan."

"Ok."

"Ok."

"Do you think I'm weird?"

"You're the weirdest person I know, but I don't think that you're weird because you think too much. I think you're different because you think too much. You're weird because you're friends with me."

And then they walked back to Phil's house, which was now empty because Martyn had wanted to go to the park with Phil's mom and dad, apparently.

"I should pick out what I'm going to wear tonight." Phil stated as they wandered into his room.

He threw open all of the drawers in his dresser and took his time sifting through every article of clothing he had, not bothering to be neat about it either.

Finally he landed on a worn brown leather jacket, a plain white t-shirt and suspenders with off-brand grey slacks.

"Do I look stupid in this?" He asked, less then a little concerned. He didn't actually care what anyone thought he looked like as long as  _he_  thought he looked fine. Sometimes he asked for Dan's opinion when he was either fishing for compliments - which Dan happily provided - or when he couldn't make up his mind.

"Phil you  _are_  stupid."

"Not the question, Daniel. And also not true"

"Ever since I saw you trying to sneak behind the counter at the movies and fall onto the popcorn machine and break it, I can't see you and not think you look stupid."

"Ugh, you're no help."

"I try."

Phil turned in front of the mirror, trying to see how he looked from all angles.

"This will do, I guess. With some good shoes, I can pull it off." Phil said, then pausing and rethinking what he'd said. "Honestly, with some good shoes I can pull anything off."

Dan just laughed and thought back to the movie theater.

"Good shoes can't help you pull of movie popcorn butter all in your hair."

"Shut up!" Phil yelled, but it was kind. "Well, I assume you're wearing that?"

He looked Dan up and down, a bored expression on his face.

"Yes, so don't try and convince me to wear something of yours again. You're way taller than me anyways, that doesn't work anymore."

"Dan, your outfit choices never cease to disappoint me."

"And  _your_  outfit choices never cease to terrify me." Dan retaliated, sticking his tongue out.

"You  _wish_  you had my fashion sense."

And then that led into a whole different string of jokes. Things often did with Dan and Phil.

~~~

"Ok, should we go pick up Anthony?" It was 8:40 and Phil had mentioned that they should start heading down to the train station.

"I called him while you were organizing my room against my wishes. I changed my mind. We should go alone to the city this time. We can check out this new club that I noticed last time we went." Phil said this like it was no big deal. Dan rejoiced in his mind. "Which, by the way, you should stop doing. Randomly organizing my room every time you come over. It's a dead giveaway that you've been over."

"Isn't it kind of rude to just cancel plans last minute with no explanation?"

"Eh, whatever. Anthony's a nice guy, he'll get it."

"Yeah, he is, I guess." Dan was noticing that now. Now that Anthony didn't seem like that much of a threat anymore.

They walked to the train station near the park and Phil got both of their tickets. They didn't talk about it - because what eighteen year olds talked about money? - but there were certain things that Dan's family couldn't afford that Phil's could. One of the few things that went unspoken between them.

~~~

The city was warm. It tended to be, in the summer. In the winter it was freezing. But now it was warm, even at night. It kind of felt like a morning warm. Coffee cup warm. Under a pile of covers warm. Holding onto someone warm.

But then if you looked around it felt different. With all of the light-up buildings and the black sky and the teenagers running around like it was their last night to do so, it felt more real and in your face. A glow-in- the-dark warm. It felt like fireworks and lost souls. Like crowded rooms and empty minds. Like strangers faces and familiar sidewalks and loud speakers playing shitty music that you can't help but dance to. So as soon as Dan and Phil were let into the club by the handsome bouncer who winked at Dan, that was what they did. They danced in a crowded room surrounded by empty minds and shitty music. Eventually, Phil's mind was empty too. But not Dan's. of course not Dan's. Never Dan's.

His mind was as full as usual. Full of giddy smiles and awkward limbs not sure what to do. Full of his surroundings. This particular club had warm colored lights flashing all over the place and underaged teens under the influence. Any influence. Hanging off of their drugs and drinks and their lovers kisses.

The great part about the city was that it didn't matter if Dan kissed Phil in public.

The bad part about the city was that there were other men and women for Phil to kiss.

Then again, there were also other men for Dan to kiss. But it wasn't really fair, since Dan didn't want to kiss anyone but Phil.

But Dan, as always, dealt with it. Instead of whining about it, he let it all stay in the dangerous choppy waters of his mind, where it would stay forever in his conscious, just waiting to spill over. He was good at keeping it in, though, by now.

"Dan, they're playing a good song!" Phil had to shout over the music and the people. It took Dan a second to realize what song it was. It took Dan a second before he realized who was playing. The Cure. Push. They were actually playing a good song. A rarity in these sorts of places.

The crowd didn't seem too effected by it, but Dan and Phil both started dancing a lot more fluidly. Dan didn't really care who he bumped into right now, and he doubted that they cared about him. It was a nice change of pace. The overcrowded, overflowing feeling of it all.

Dan didn't get any drinks - he was convinced that his fake ID wouldn't work as well on the bartender as it had on the bouncer who clearly had a thing for him - but he still felt drunk. Drunk on the flashing lights. Drunk on Phil's lips. Drunk off the surprisingly good music. Drunk off the sweet taste of maraschino cherry on Phil's tongue. He usually didn't get 'girly' drinks but he'd been trying to tempt Dan into getting one and he knew Dan liked them. He always felt drunk when they came to the city for nights like this.

And then he still felt drunk when they left.

This time when they left, they went running along the streets is search of times square. Clumsy as fuck and tripping over themselves until they found the huge billboards and screens. Then they just sat down against a brink wall on the sidewalk because Phil was drunk and Dan did't want to hold him up anymore. And they just talked nonsense for who knows how long before Phil finally stood up and claimed that all the people and the energy had sobered him up. Dan knew it was;t true just by the way his voice sounded but he got up anyways.

"We should go get ice cream." Phil decided as soon as Dan stood up. But then he promptly changed his mind to cake. Then milkshakes. Then fries. Then hoagies. Dan just let him keep suggesting things as they walked aimlessly.

Then by the time Phil started singing The Ramones - Dan's shushing only fueling him on - Dan finally suggested they got home, and dragged Phil to the subway.

It was a classic New York City night. The ones that Dan wouldn't forget, no matter how crowded his mind got.

Maybe he didn't necessarily 'fit in' in the city - he seriously doubted that he fit in anywhere - but at least Dan felt content here.

 


	18. Pluto

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I'm back! Sorry it took so long to update this, something big came up andI've been occupied the past month or so. Updates will probably be a little infrequent from now on, but probably not as much as this one. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy this one!

Young and Menace ~ Fall Out Boy

_"I'm just here flying off the deep end"_

_"I'm just here for the... for the...._

_Fall"_

_ "I was young and a menace" _

* * *

"Come on, on East Street theres this abandoned factory right off the highway. They're gonna completely take it down, wrecking ball and everything, in a week."

Dan had no idea what Phil was on about. He'd called the Howell residence at eight AM in the middle of June. His father had picked up and called Dan down, pulling him rather harshly from his sleep.

All that Phil had said was that Dan had to be at his house in fifteen minutes max, and it was an emergency.

So naturally, Dan thought that someone had died, or at the very least gotten seriously injured.

He was at Phil's front door in ten minutes.

As soon as Martyn opened the door and shot Dan a judgmental glare, he realized that the whole 'emergency' thing had probably just been part of Phil's dramatics. The likely case was that if it had really been an emergency, Martyn wouldn't have time for judgmental glares.

Dan just rolled his eyes at Phil's older brother and pushed past him, inviting himself to the Lester house.

As soon as Dan had walked into Phil's bedroom - the dark grey comforter of Phil's bed familiar to him as he sat down - Phil had started speaking.

"We have to take your families car again today."

He was leaning on his windows sill, smoking a cigarette and blowing the smoke outside.

Dan instantly shook his head.

"Come on, right on East Street theres this abandoned factory right off the highway. They're gonna completely take it down, wrecking ball and everything, in a week."

Dan had no clue what Phil was talking about but the sun was shining through the clouds in a thick yellow color and with the way it reflected off of Phil's dark blue shirt and pale skin, he looked very much like a Van Gogh work of art. He wondered if even Phil had any idea what he was talking about sometimes. He also wondered if Phil knew that he always looked like a beautiful painting. Distant and surreal and dreamlike and colorful on some day and monochromatic on others, realistic one minute, abstract the next, made with purposeful strokes of acrylic. By the way that he walked around, like he owned the world and owed no one anything, Dan figured he probably  _did_  know that last one. A self aware Van Gogh work of art.

"Phil, what are you talking about?"

"I bought twenty cans of spray paint." He said, putting out his cigarette and making his way towards his bed, where Dan sat.

Phil's room was a mess, as always. Piles of clothes laid across the carpeted floor and crumpled up pieces of paper could be found on every surface. He also had random stacks of books throughout different points of the room and CDs as well. He had millions of souvenirs from sleepless nights that most people would label as 'junk'. Clearly, Phil was not 'most people'.

His room was a little bit like him. It wasn't beautiful until you got to know it. To Dan, Phil's room was perfect. It held memories of their teen years and it held memories of Phil's everyday life. It was a perfect fit for Phil. The room of a tortured artist. It had posters covering every wall of movies and musicians and Phil had pinned polaroids that Dan had taken into random parts of the drywall and Dan loved it. Phil's room was absolutely beautiful to him. Just like how Phil was. Imperfectly perfect in the most cliche way Dan could think of.

"Ok, well maybe I didn't  _buy_  the spray paint so much as bribe that art kid at our school for them."

"God, please tell me you didn't bribe Tommy." Dan gave Phil a pleading look, to which Phil just responded with an apologetic shrug. "Oh, but the poor boy is so innocent and small. He's only gonna be a sophomore after summer ends."

"Hey, its not my fault that the naive are easy prey." Phil said.

Dan let himself fall backwards to lay on the bed. Phil followed. The ceiling in Phil's room had splatters of paint on it. Sometimes Phil would randomly buy buckets of paint and a few brushes and he'd attack the ceiling above his bed. All of the walls were occupied with memories and posters, and the only place where he could actually reach the ceiling was from his bed. Ergo, Phil painted the ceiling over his bed.

The most recent work was a poorly done solar system. There were a few mistakes, like how Phil had done Mars in purple, and hadn't included Venus at all. Also, Pluto was the biggest planet instead of the smallest. And all of the few constellations that Phil had drawn were terribly incorrect, but it was still an effort. Phil wasn't the best at painting, but he had a doodle effect to his work that made it cute.

"You know Pluto is supposed to be small, right?" Dan asked, knowing very well that Phil knew that basic fact.

"Yeah I know."

"Then why'd you make it about the same size as the sun?"

"Cause poor Pluto is so far away from the others and if he's gonna be different in any way, he at least deserves to be better than the others." Phil admitted, putting one hand behind his head.

"Who's Pluto?"

"I'm not sure yet. I don't know if Pluto is you, or me, or someone else entirely."

"Yeah. Maybe Pluto is Anthony," Dan added.

"Yeah. Maybe."

Dan liked Anthony more now.

They moved onto different topics, like how big the universe was and how small they were, and whether other live was viable to exist outside of their environment, and the meaning of life, and how Phil sucked at drawing. They eventually moved onto Dans London plan of running away.

"Come on Phil, I recon your poetry could get us some money."

"Not  _enough_." Phil insisted. "And London is so boring and rainy and ugly."

"What do you mean?! London seems like a dream land compared to here." Dan pushed, outraged by Phil accusations.

"All this talk about London is just making me think of the future and I can't take it." Phil said nudging Dan with his shoulder.

"Well the future is important to think about." Dan retorted with a little shove to Phil's shoulder.

"No it's not." Phil said, ultimately getting Dan to shut up with the surefire tactic of resting his hand on Dans lower stomach.

Dan retaliated by putting his hand on Phil's upper thigh, and then they were both gone.

So it was, all in all, a pretty successful morning, Dan would say.

 

"I agree to the spray painting." Dan said as they climbed out of Phil's bedroom window. Dan had fussed enough about his hair to get it back in place, but Phil's hair was still a mess.

"Ok, good. We'll head out after lunch. And I'm inviting Anthony. It's only fair after canceling on him that once."

"Sure." Dan was surprised that his voice held minimal jealousy.

~~~

It hadn't been that hard to get his dads car for the day. Mr Howell took the train to work and wouldn't be back until late today. Mrs Howell walked to her job in the small hospital she was a nurse at, and when she got home it was unlikely that she'd notice the lack of a car in the garage. Driving out to the building that Phil was talking about was the hard part.

First they'd gone to pick Anthony up, which went rather smoothly. He'd brought a couple of cassette with him to play in the car and they'd ended up jamming out to Heroes by David Bowie and Head On The Door by The Cure that had just come out in April that same year. Then Anthony mentioned that he had some Billy Joel and Dan and Phil both started freaking out.

But then when it came time for Phil to point Dan to which roads he had to turn down, everything slowly became a mess. Phil kept accidentally leading them down backroads and telling Dan to take wrong turns. They had to go in the wrong direction down a one way street at one point just to get back on track. Not the safest thing, but when you're blasting Scenes Form An Italian Restaurant and singing along off tune, you really don't care about those kinds of unsafe choices.

It took them about an hour more than expected to get to the place, but the place was the same as it would've been an hour earlier.

As soon as Dan pulled into the huge empty lot in front of the abandoned old building, he saw why Phil had wanted to do this. The building looked like it'd been sitting there collecting dust for a thousand years. It looked like exactly what you'd expect from an old abandoned factory. What they had made there in the past, Dan had no clue, but Phil let his imagination run wild.

"I bet this was a government facility and they just put up a front of it being a factory, but really it was so that the president could spy on us out here in New York."

Anthony added his own opinion, opening a beer can that he must've snuck into Dan's car when he wasn't looking. "I bet the commies had something to do with it."

"It was p-probably just a normal factory, g-guys." Dan stated, noting the way it was built. "It's small and the walls are b-brick and cement. Cheaply m-made if it's all broken apart by now. The whole wall is collapsed, and theres r-rubble everywhere. The government would have bullet proof walls or windows or s-some shit. And theres no way that c-communists would set up here."

"You and your stupid rationality. Have a beer, loosen up." Phil opened the cars back door and pulled out a cooler that had somehow gotten back there. Dan knew better than to question it.

Dan and Anthony sat on the hood of the car drinking while Phil walked around (to "explore the buildings mysteries"). Anthony was good at keeping the conversation going and Dan found that he wasn't stuttering as much as usual.

Once Phil had looked around the whole building - which Dan had insisted was unsafe, but of course no one listened to him - he got back to them and instantly started explaining the dynamics.

"Ok, so, the first two floors, counting the one thats like half way underground, are just a parking lot. Should be easy to spray paint. The other floors will be harder to get to since most of the stairs are crumbled and shit. I say we should just spray paint all the cement walls of the parking lot and then anything else we can get to."

Anthony agreed without hesitation, hopping off the car and grabbing the red spray paint. Dan was now starting to feel a little more nervous about the logistics of this whole thing. How had Phil found out about this building in the first place? What if the construction workers who were supposed to be coming in a few weeks to take it down showed up early? How illegal was this? Was there any way that it could be traced back to their simple little homes in the suburbs?

And with that last and depression question, Phil tossed a blue spray paint can at Dan, which he was forced to put his hands out to catch - and drop, and pick back up - and said "For you, blue boy."

And then Dan was left to scramble after Phil and Anthony because they'd already started striding towards the building. A new place to vandalize, a fresh canvas to paint, they didn't see the difference. Dan figured that if he wanted to have any fun with this, he'd have to start seeing it like that too.

~~~

The sun had started coming down and they were still there. They'd already stamped all of their designs on every surface that they could reach. Random sentences in print, doodles, quotes, anything that came to mind.

Dan had put some random Shakespeare quotes that he recalled, just because he could.

Phil wrote out random Beat Generation poetry.

Anthony, as it turned out, had some sort of artistic ability. He was actually good. Dan asked about it and apparently he'd been drawing his whole life and never wanted to stop. He'd be starting art school once summer ended. The real deal.

Now they were just laying on top of the car and watching the clouds turn different colors with their beers in hand and music blasting from the radio. Dan had opened all of the doors of the car and turned the volume all the way up.

Dan was balancing his half-full beer can on his stomach and trying to focus on it not falling over when Anthony sat up.

"We should probably get going," He announced, crumpling up his empty can and tossing it to the ground. Dan didn't want to check the time but he knew that if he did he'd start freaking out about how late they'd stayed there. But at the moment he couldn't find any valid reason to freak out, so he just sat up and nodded along.

Phil didn't move. Instead he just kept watching the clouds move.

"That one looks like a dragon." He commented.

This prompted Dan to lay on his back again, his head next to Phil's, to see which cloud he was talking about.

"Nah. It looks like a dog."

"What'd you mean? It's totally an alien from Mars or some shit." Anthony declared, following Dans actions.

"If it's an alien, it's from Pluto." Phil disclosed, smiling and turning to Dan, and it was all Dan could do to not lean forwards and kiss him right in front of Anthony.

"You guys are weird. We should hit the road if he want to get back anytime soon."

Dan knew he was right. Still, when Anthony jumped down and climbed into the car and Phil stayed put, Dan stayed too.

"Phil?"

"Yeah."

"We should go home now."

"I know."

"Ok."

Phil took his time sitting up and getting down, and just as Dan got into the car and buckled his seat belt, Phil started rummaging around in the trunk of the car, where are the spray paint was.

"Phil?" Dan rolled down he window and called out for his friend.

"One second, theres one more thing I have to do!" Phil shouted back, grabbing the third can of purple spray paint. Dan just rolled his eyes and rolled the window back up.

He glanced back at Anthony, who was sifting through his cassettes.

"You're fine w-with putting up with this?" He asked.

"You've been doing it for much longer, my friend." Anthony replied, clapping Dan on the shoulder.

"You don't know the h-half of it."

Phil started spray painting some huge letters on the outdoor parking lot that they had been parked on. Dan couldn't see it from his angle in the car, neither could Anthony.

Curiosity got the best of Dan and when he was pulling out of the lot he checked the rear view mirrors and saw, in large font, ' _I'M BISEXUAL'_ written in purple on the cement. He smiled to himself and turned the radio back on.

"What station?"

 

 


	20. Normalcy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so.... I didn't post for a long time again. I'm so sorry! I know it sucks when authors do that, but I've just been really busy and if any of you guys are writers too, you'll understand - writing is hard! Like,,,, damn. Inspiration? I don't know her. Anyways, thank you so much if you waited and are going to continue reading, this chapter is one of my favorites out of not only the ones I've already posted but the ones I'll be posting in the future because it's just so telling of their characters and theres some foreshadowing and I just,,,, I love it. I hope you do to! <3

 

Strawberries and Cigarettes - Troye Sivan

_"Remember when we first met?_

_You said 'Light my cigarette'_

_So I lied to my mom and dad_

_And jumped the fence and I ran"_

_"Long nights, daydreams_

_Sugar and smoke rings, I've been a fool"_

_"Blue eyes, black jeans_

_Lighters and candy, I've been a fool"_

* * *

 

Dan lowered his polaroid, knowing that the picture he took of Phil would come out slightly blurry. He was usually good with not shaking when he was taking pictures, but Phil looked particularly distracting in his new jeans.

"So what'd you think?" Phil asked, sitting down opposite Dan next to the record player and crossing his legs.

"I don't know. It's opening night, there'll be a lot of people." These kinds of situations always made Dan awfully anxious. But Phil loved this stuff. His excitement fed off of it. There were times when Phil would sit out of these things for Dans sake and there were times when Dan went to these things to please Phil. He loved the way Phil's blue eyes would spark and how his heart would beat faster. Phil loved big crowds. Loved being the center of attention, even if everyone was just booing at him.  _Especially_  if everyone was just booing at him.

A new roller rink was opening near their high school. The construction had been going on for a while, but tonight was opening night. Supposedly it would be the new hangout spot. Dan thought it was all pretty stupid, but he knew Phil would love to go somewhere that he knew there'd be a big crowd and look better than everyone.

He wasn't a  _huge_  figure at the high, but being as abnormal and Phil, you got plenty of attention. Everyone at their school knew who he was. It was a small town, a small school, and Phil demanded to be known. They just didn't pay attention to his every move, like they did to Rick or other popular people. Still he was quiet infamous amongst the student body, which was sure to be packed into that new rink tonight. And now Phil was asking Dan to go.

"Come on, it won't be that bad. Anthony will be there too and we can all just hang out and eat snacks. You don't even have to skate." Phil wasn't very convincing. He shouldn't have brought up the possibility of skating at all. Not only would Dan be in a large crowd, but he'd have to be participating in something physically strenuous in front of a large crowd. And with his awkward height and uncoordinated limbs, he was sure to be a mess. "Hey, I see those wheels turning, you're already overthinking this." Phil commented, breaking Dans internal debate.

Technically, he owed it to Phil. The amount of times that Phil held back on going places because he knew Dan wouldn't want to vs. the amount of times that Dan went places that Phil liked was pretty unbalanced.

"I don't know, I- I don't know. There are gonna be a lot of people from school. People whom I pretty much planned on never seeing again after graduation. Or should I say, the failure that was my graduation."

"Oh come  _on_ , not  _this_  again. Dan, you  _barely_  tripped, no one saw!"

"I literally  _heard_  people laughing, Phil!"

"That was only one person, and it was me!"

Dan couldn't really argue that, so he just stared down at his hands in his lap.

Phil didn't say anything for a while, and if it weren't for his light breathing Dan would've worried he'd disappeared.

"Hey, we don't have to go if you don't want to." Phil reached a hand out and held one of Dan's in his own. "I know you don't like these things, it's fine. I understand. It's not the end of the world, there will be other things I can go to. Tonight we can just stay in and watch Star Wars and marvel at Mark Hamill's... amazing acting."

That got a laugh from Dan.

"Listen, Dan, I know how you get. It's honestly ok to just stay home tonight."

Dan knew that Phil meant it. But he felt bad for doing this. For holding Phil back from having the last summer that he dreamed of. Plus, he could put up with  _one night_  of this stuff, right? It wasn't  _that_  big of a deal.

"We can go. I won't freak out or anything. Honestly, I've been getting better recently anyways, I think" That was a lie. "It'll be fun." Another lie.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure." Dan finalized. "Plus, if we stay at my house I'm sure Greg the cat will just bother us anyways."

"Ah yes, Greg. I remember her."

They both fell into a fit of snickers and Dan started playing London Calling.

~~~

The color scheme was clear and prevailed. Red white and blue. The only source of light came from huge spot lights that slowly went back and forth through those three colors. The rink was a mess of high schools falling over. A lot of them looked drunk - and a lot of them  _were_.

Dan was instantly nervous. Hands shaking at his sides, eyes darting around, he must've been so obviously out of his element. He wasn't upset that they were there, though. He knew this would make Phil happy, and that was the beautiful part of the give-and-take of their relationship. There wouldn't come a day where he'd take more than give.

Sadly, that didn't really calm his anxiety.

What  _did_  suddenly calm his anxiety (at least a little bit) was Phil's confident smile. He was genuinely happy, surrounded by the energy of the crowd. The movements of everyone being so out-of-sync and still so together. It kind of made everything else melt away sometimes, Phil's smile.

But of course, Anthony showed up and Phil left Dan sitting at the counter of the snack bar to g greet him, and everything slowly came back into focus.

The new Prince song was playing, Kiss. One of the few popular songs that Dan was actually very into. And, he had to admit, the colors and aesthetic of the place was quite pleasing. By the time Dan was ordering a coca cola, Phil was walking back up to him with Anthony at his side.

They looked slightly comical next to each other, Dan had to admit. Anthony was, as usual, laid back and lazily staring ahead, looked calm enough to have just smoked a joint. Phil was all wild eyes and excitement. Phil looked new and Anthony seemed bored but happy. But both of them looked like their minds were full.

The kid working alone behind the counter was probably a year or two younger than the three boys - he looked intimidated by them, especially Anthony and his particularly flamboyant outfit for the night - and handed Dan his glass coke bottle and quickly pretended to busy himself re-aranging the drinks on display. Phil gave a slight chuckle, but Anthony must have been used to it and didn't seem to notice.

Tonight he wore a (very) tight t-shirt - which looked like it'd been cut with kitchen scissors to show just a sliver of his stomach - under a baggy, light jean jacket with faded purple and blue triangles painted onto it outlined in gold. His pants were the classic tight jeans that flared out at the bottom, the style of which he must have been obsessed with for how often he wore it. The Dramatic Boot-Cut, as Phil called it.

They stayed at the counter for a while, just chatting. Dan figured Phil was doing this to spare Dan from having to actually walk around  the place and from being seen with the two most...  _noticeable_ , to put it nicely, guys there. But eventually, Anthony stood up and stated that if they were going to playing terrible music, they might as well have some good dancers out in the rink.

"I don't think thats such a good idea." Phil was quick to protest the suggestion, standing up and gently placing a hand on Dan's back. Dan, who's mind started playing warning bells as soon as he heard the words 'dancers' and 'rink'.

"Come on, we didn't come here to drink coke and eat chips, did we? Lets skate." Anthony countered, an easy smile on his lips.

Phil looked down at Dan, who was still seated, and still freaking out. Dan knew those eyes. Not just the blue and green and yellow color, but what they were saying. Or rather, asking. Phil was asking for permission to go and roller-skate with Anthony. Possibly he was asking for Dan to go with them both. He was asking for normalcy. A normalcy that Dan was rarely able to offer him. He was asking if they could just be normal teenagers for this one last summer and have normal teenage fun and smile and be happy. And Dan hated that he couldn't just shake off this feeling of doom and angst and sadness and give Phil this night, but he simply couldn't. This was one of the things that Dan just couldn't give Phil. Something he'd have to take. Normalcy.

"You g-guys go a-ahead, I'll stay a-at the edge o-of the rink."

~~~

It truly was impressive just how bad the song choice was. They'd played Kiss, which Dan had found himself enjoying, but they'd followed it with  _Girls Just Wanna Have Fun_ , which was chased by  _We Got The Beat_  by the Go Go's. Not the best night for Dans ears, which were now suffering through a slight remix of  _Don't You Forget About Me_.

Dan had leaned against one spot of the rinks partition and had only moved to use the restroom once. Anthony and Phil seemed to be having plenty of fun though. Anthony somehow knew exactly what he was doing - something that didn't surprise Dan anymore. Anthony seemed to be that kind of person. It took a little longer for Phil to get the hang of it, but he eventually was gliding along fine.

For the most part, they were just making fools of themselves in the center of the crowded rink. The people around them were very clearly annoyed. Phil and Anthony were very clearly pleased.

Dan watched Phil say something to Anthony and then skate to the edge of the rink where Dan stood with a beer bottle in his hand.

"Hey, are you good just being here alone?" He sounded winded from all of the skating.

"Yeah, don't worry about me, I'm doing fine here. You guys are pretty entertaining." Honestly, he was just terrified that one of the millions of people in the place would come up to him and try to talk. Which obviously would be followed by disaster, as always. But Anthony and Phil  _did_  provide a distraction.

"I probably fell over a million times. I swear, they greased the rink's floor!" Phil chuckled. "Anyways, I wanted to make a song request, do you know if they're doing that?"

Dan shook his head.

"Ok, well can you check? These skates take forever to take off and put back on and I don't wanna have to do all of that. Please?" Phil begged.

"What song?" Dan asked without really thinking about what this would entail.

"Blondie. One Way or Another. If they're gonna play popular songs, they might as well be good ones, you know?"

"Sure, I can go check it out."

This whole conversation was followed by Dan walking a circle around the whole place and finally finding out that there was a DJ who was taking requests towards the back. Dan avoided human contact for about fifteen minutes by hanging out by the arcade entrance and nervously planning what he'd say. That couldn't last forever though, and disaster ensued, as it always did. He wanted to do this. He wanted to give Phil a bit of normalcy. A normal friend, a normal human being who can talk to other human beings and not freak out. Normalcy.

"H-hey, could you p-play One Way O-or Another, B-Blondie?" He'd said it so quickly, he hoped the DJ had understood. He'd die if he had to repeat himself. Dan and his fucking stuttering.

And then, of course, who would be manning the DJ other than Will Wattfort from the closet incident.

"Hey, Dan!" He sounded more enthusiastic than a sober person generally would. Dan was slightly suspicious that Will was slightly buzzed. At least that explained some of the songs.

"W-why are y-you working here?" Seeing Wills face took Dans mind to places he didn't want to go. Like that party. He realized that he sounded unreasonably irritated by the poor guy's presence, but he honestly couldn't care less.

"Had to get a summer job. My parents were on my back about going out so often, said I might as well be making money while I'm at it." He shrugged before looking back to his equipment. "Sorry, looks like we don't have that one. They've barely got anything here, why'd you think I've been playing only greatest hits? We've got Rapture, though. Both by Blondie?" He offered, looking slightly bashful.

"Y-yeah. Sure. Thanks." Just as Dan was turning to leave when Will stood up suddenly - swaying a little bit (Dan wouldn't have noticed it if he wasn't so observant of people he was anxious around) -and grabbed Dan's shoulder lightly.

"Wait. Can you give Anthony my number?"

Dan almost couldn't believe his ears.

"Anthony?"

"Yeah. He's... I don't know, he's pretty cool." Will professed. Ok, so maybe disaster didn't ensue, but this was just as confusing.

"I-I mean, yeah, s-sure. But, Will, you're a g-good looking guy. And, not t-to be crude, a good k-kisser. There are a lot more gay g-guys here than y-you'd think. I'm sure a-any of them would be l-lucky to have you. Are you really s-sure that Anthony is the b-best choice?"

"Hey, don't be a bitch about it, I like him, ok?"

"I-I'm not b-being a bitch, I'm j-just saying. He's not really the kind of guy that s-stays with one p-person for long."

"Phil doesn't seem like that kind of guy either but look at you too. You're probably the most permanent two people in this town. I don't think anyone who's seen you could ever imagine you two being apart."

"B-but we're n-not l-like that. Y-you know w-we're not like t-that."  _Fuck_. Dan was stuttering more again. He really didn't like where this was going. Maybe disaster  _was_  about to ensue.

"Oh come on." Will leaned in closer, lowering his voice to a whisper. Dan appreciated it, even though barely anyone was standing in this corner of the roller rink. "I've seen the way you two act around each other. It's hard to miss. And with the little information that you gave me  _that night_ , I'd have to be an idiot to not figure out the rest." Annnnnd, disaster. At least in Dans mind. Dans fragile, fragile mind.

He instantly stumbled back a step.

"L-listen just... just p-play th-the song a-and leave me a-alone." He stammered.

Will quickly scribbled something down and then handed Dan a ripped piece of paper. It said his name and number.

"Hey, I'm sorry. I don't wanna make any enemies, ok. Just hand this to Anthony please? I swear I won't tell anyone about you and Phil. I'm not a dick. Not  _that_   _much_  of a dick, at least." Will quickly stated, getting back to his music in a flash.

Dan figured that was his due to go and got out of there as quickly as possible. He heard the tune for Rapture starting to play over head and looked to Phil. He honestly didn't seem to care that it hadn't been the song he expected. His smile shone bright anyways. With just a simple song change, Phil was definitely skating a little better.

God, he didn't even have to be saying anything. His movements alone were like poetry. Even the clumsy ones. Even the off-beat ones.

Maybe it was ok that Dan had never been able to offer Phil normalcy. Maybe what they had was so much better than any normalcy. Their best memories, after all, were never the normal ones. They were the ones that Phil would tack up to his wall, or that Dan would take photographs of. The ones worth keeping were rarely ones that other people could relate to. The good times were never normal. Maybe that was the point.

Like the memories they made at fourteen, still young and new and confused and eager. Still more willing to dive into deeper water than they should have been.

The time they were fourteen and playing video games in Dans basement and Dan had been feeling depressed that month for the first time and he kept losing to Phil. Of course Dan and his overflowing emotions were provoking him to cry already, so he did. And then he told Phil how he'd been feeling and they talked all night and didn't sleep until six AM the next day.

The time the Fourth Of July festival had been in town when they were fifteen and Phil's dad told Dan and Phil to get in the back of the pick up truck that he's now long since sold and he drove them speeding around the empty streets because everyone was absent and busy at the festival.

The time kids had picked on Dan on the first day of school because his clothes were his cousins hand-me-downs and fit him horrendously and then Phil had walked in and yelled at the kids until one of them started crying and they all ran away.

The time Phil was taken to a holding cell for challenging a cop at a protest he'd gone to (for women's rights). And when Dan showed up he'd gotten put in for arguing with the same cop to let Phil out. Adrien had had to come pick them up, and he wasn't all too happy about it.

All the times that Dan had been upset and Phil had made it better. All the times that Phil had been upset and Dan had made it better. All of the random times that they'd done crazy shit without thinking. Those were never normal, and they were always the best memories to think about.

 


	21. Not As Okay As I Seem Pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long but oh my god I worked so hard on it. Thank you so much if you stuck around from the beginning and thank you so much if you just started reading this last week. I appreciate it all so much, you all have no idea! I hope you enjoy this mess...

 

I'm Not Ok ~ My Chemical Romance

_"I'm okay"_

* * *

 

So maybe Anthony wasn't so bad.

Dan and Phil had spent the day with him. Just walking around town, hanging out in the gazebo in the park, checking out the small bookstore, eating in the ice cream shoppe, and take polaroids along the way. Anthony was funny. He was tolerant of Dan's stuttering. He was kind. He kept his distance from Phil now.

Dan had given him Will Wattforts number and he'd laughed and made a big point that he'd "been there, done that" and was done. Dan saw him pocket the number though, so many there was hope for poor Will. Dan doubted it.

"So, you're into photography." Anthony noted as soon as Phil left the room, picking up Dans polaroid and inspecting it.

"Yeah. A-And you're into Will W-Wattfort." Dan proclaimed.

He grinned at Anthony's reaction. He'd spun around almost tripped on his own feet, putting Dans camera down quickly.

"Huh?"

"I saw y-you pocketing his n-number earlier today."

"Well nothing gets past you," Anthony chuckled, calming down considerably. "I mean, I would never date him or anything, but he's hot I guess, so why not mess with him." Dan wasn't sure whether Anthony actually felt that way or was putting up a front, but he just nodded and responded with a sarcastic "sure".

Phil came back from changing in the other room while Anthony was looking through Dan's record collection and Dan was explaining backstories to the songs.

"So, what do you think, gentlemen?" He dramatically twirled in a circle.

"Looks great," Anthony commented, probably just wanting to be done with the whole fashion show that Phil insisted on every time he couldn't decide on what to wear out on the town.

"Perfect," Dan replied honestly. Phil bowed graciously to their answers.

"Thank you, thank you. I think I'm gonna go with this one."

Anthony sighed in relief.

"Finally. We can't head out too late, the guy I know can't let us in if the club is full to capacity. We can cut in line, but he doesn't have  _that_ much power there."

"Lets be on our way then," Phil picked up his wallet and walked out of the door. Anthony and Dan followed, as they'd both been ready for about an hour. Phil had taken quiet a long time to get ready.

~~~

The club was full of moving people and discordant singing over the booming speakers. Dan saw every fashion of clothing and men kissing men and women kissing women and people whom he honestly couldn't tell and didn't care what their gender was. He gripped Phil's shoulder tightly as to not get lost, but his eyes wandered all over the place, no matter how strict of a path he was following. New York had always seemed magical, but this place... this was beyond.

Dan recalled a time that he and Phil had been on the Subway and two guys were talking about where they were going to go. They only ever said the real name of the club once and henceforth referred to it as 'land of the fairies', which made sense at the time - it being a gay club. But now that phrase meant so much more. It meant pride. Something Dan hadn't felt in almost all of his life. The only time he'd ever really felt prideful had been when he taught himself some piano and his dad had said something along the lines of "nice" or some other half-assed compliment. Well, that and when Phil had first taken a interest in being friends. Dan had felt extremely proud of himself then. It often occurred to Dan that he really only started feeling ok with himself when Phil started feeling ok with him. Especially when it got down to the whole sexuality thing.

He remembered getting ready for his first high school party. He'd taken so long choosing his outfit. He wanted it all to look perfect. Phil had been going through his punk phase at the time. He'd thrown together an outfit of ripped jeans a a white tee that read  _"theres no authority but yourself"_  in sharpie letters that he'd clearly drawn on himself.

Phil had already gone to a few high school parties, gotten drunk at a few high school parties, smoked at a few high school parties, the lot. Phil had already lived. Whereas Dan, this was his first real experience at living and he didn't want to screw it up by not blending in.

As soon as they walked into Will Wattforts house Dan felt a puff of smoke being blown into his face. he fought to urge to cough and waved it away with his hands, scurrying away from the doorway where a girl stood, smoking a cigar. Phil followed, chuckling at Dan already.

"You should probably have something to drink if you want to enjoy this." Phil offered, steering Dan towards the kitchen. It was Dans first time at Will house and he had no idea where anything was, but he was too distracted by the myriad of people to take any notice to the actual house itself. There were Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors. Most were Sophomores, as Will was one himself, but the seniors clearly dominated, looking at all of the younger kids like they were fresh meat.

The song London Calling was playing through the house and Dan made a mental note that Will Wattfort had a good taste in music. It seemed like a very London Calling feeling in the house. Except for Dan happened to love the idea of London, whereas Wills house was kind of terrifying to him at the moment.

Just as he and Phil stepped into the kitchen - Phil all confidence and punk-looking, Dan probably looking like a puppy in a cage full of blood thirsty Great Danes - Dan knew Phil had made a mistake.

This place looked very clearly like seniors territory. They were all sitting on the counter tops or making out or taking one too many shots or smoking some strange smelling substance. And in the middle of it all, Thomas Braver. One of the most popular kids in the school, excluding the football players, and one of the people who hated Phil the most in the world, Dan was sure of it.

His imminent response was to run away, but just as he started turning, Phil gripped his shoulder and turned him back around to face the kitchen.

"We came in here to get you a drink, and I'm gonna get you a drink." He whispered sternly into Dans ear. Dan had to admit, it was pretty hot. So he just stood stalk still, as tense as humanly possible.

Phil only took a step towards the cooler when Tom noticed them both. He hopped down from the counter he'd been occupying, a loud stomp to his feet, and stepped closer to Phil. He'd purposefully jumps down, startling some of the others in the room. He wanted to attention.

"Well if it isn't Phil Lester." He called out, projecting his voice and stepping into Phil's space, trying to intimidate him with the height he had on him. "And look what the fairy dragged in. A friend."

Shit.

He was looking right at Dan - who must have looked completely on his death bed with all of the blood rushing out of his face. He knew that his mouth hung a little open in fear, but he was too petrified to move.

"What'd you want, Tommy?" Phil asked, conversationally, staring right back at Braver. Dan knew he purposefully did that to get the attention back off of Dan. He still felt like he couldn't breath. Not with Braver that close to Phil. Not with a safety threat that close to Phil. To  _his_  Phil. He tried to keep the tears out of his eyes.

"Just wondering what made you think you could come here uninvited,  _Philly_." Thomas wasn't the brightest of students, and his insults and comebacks reflected such a fact.

"Fuck off Thomas, I'm not in the mood to deal with you today." Phil said casually, walking past the boy twice his height and strength and towards the cooler. Thomas was clearly annoyed at Phil's confidence. Because, of course, how  _dare_  someone  _younger_   and  _smaller_   than him actually stand up for themselves???

As soon as Phil got two Coronas, Thomas stepped up to him and took one out of his hands. Phil rolled his eyes but stood quiet and patient for whatever Thomas was planning.

"Who's this for? Your fairy boyfriend? Did you bring him here with you? Why doesn't he show himself?" Dan instantly stiffened against against the door frame. He wanted to run away but the lack of feeling in his legs and Phil being stuck there kept his feet planted on the hardwood floors of Will Wattforts house.

"Why are you asking, Thomas? Are you interested?" Phil asked, a challenge in his smile. Calling straight boys gay was always a good way to quickly win an argument. They usually went on a defensive rant and then ran away. That, or they beat you up.

This time it went the latter.

Dan closed his eyes as soon as he saw Thomas raise his fist. He didn't want to see what was going to happen, but hearing it was almost just as bad. Dan only noticed that moments too late. His first instinct was to run. Run away, that is. But his second was to run to Phil, and that was the one he followed.

"PHIL!" He figured that now was the first time that some of the people standing in the kitchen had noticed him.

It was all too much to take in. Phil cupping his cheek, eyes watering. Thomas grabbing his collar and pulling him up for a second hit. One of Thomas's friends saddening going up to Dan and grabbing him by the arm, holding him back. Dan was terrified of how no one else int he kitchen went to help Phil. Too terrified to say anything else, and not strong enough to move in this seniors grip.

But just as Thomas's fist was coming down for a second time - Phil fruitlessly kicking at his abuser - Felix walked into the room. One of the few popular kids who didn't seem like an absolute asshole. Turns out he's alright, because as soon as he saw what was going on, he ran up to Thomas and pulled his arm back.

"Whoa, what the fuck!" He pulled the guy back. Thomas, caught off guard, let go of Phil's collar, dropping him back onto his feet, and stumbled back as Felix pulled him.

This would be the point where Dan would run if he were in Phil's situation, but Phil just glared at Thomas.

"Are you ok man?" Felix asked Phil, pulling Thomas out of reach of Phil. "And you, let go of that kid, goddamn, he's only a sophomore!" Felix ordered the guy holding Dan. He'd almost forgotten that he existed in all of the chaos.

Phil nodded to Felix and walked up to Dan, looking at the guy who'd been holding him back.

"Yeah, pick on someone your own size, coward." Phil spat, putting his hand on Dans shoulder and leading him out. He grabbed a red cup from a table on the foyer and he and Dan walked out of the front door.

"Guess we're leaving a little early this time." Phil muttered as they made their way down the side walk back to Dans house, where Phil would probably crash.

"Does it hurt?" Dan asked, turning to Phil and inspecting the dark bruise forming on the side of his face. He was bleeding a little. He'd flinched away when Dan had raised his hand to move his hair out of the way, but denies that it hurt all that much.

"It's fine."

"Shit." Dan dragged a hand through his curls, pulling them up atop of his head. He felt tears prickling at his eyes and Phil already knew what was coming. He gently put his hand on Dans shoulder. If Dan hadn't been about to cry, he would've been embarrassed at how he instantly gravitated closer to his friend.

"Hey, it's alright Dan. This shit happens all the time, I'm used to it. And you're fine, no one suspected anything. It'll all be ok."

Dan wished that could calm him, but it wasn't enough. Why did words rarely seem to be enough? Even pretty words. Even Phil's words.

"No, Phil, thats not it, it's just... tonight was my first night of living, you know? And it's already not looking so great. I feel like I'll never be able to do anything normal without douchebags like that guy at the party ruining it. I feel like I'll never get a chance to live. Like,  _really_  live. Like a normal teenager." Dan was aware of how melodramatic he sounded, but he couldn't care less and he knew Phil wouldn't care either.

"Dan, what do you mean?" Phil sounded genuinely very confused. "You've been alive for sixteen years."

"Ugh, shut up, you know thats not what I mean." Dan elbowed Phil, hoping to knock some sense into him.

"I honestly don't know what you mean Dan. I mean, the 'living' thing? I'd say that you and I live pretty well. More than any of the kids at that party, thats for sure." Phil took a sip of the drink he'd taken from the party.

"No way," Dan had retorted, "They all looked so happy. And normal."

"Dan, no one's happy. Half of those kids were depressed or have fucked up home lives. And I can promise you that no one was having fun. But I guess if you want to be 'normal', feel free to join them in all of their 'American Dream' glory."

Phil had a big problem with the "american dream" back then.

Anyways, Dan had been pretty shaken at hearing "fairy boy" and now he proudly was being led through a club that was referred to as 'land of the fairies' by will. A lot had changed.

Phil tugged on Dans arm and brought him closer so he  wouldn't lose him through the crowd.

"Anthony offered to buy the first round, what'll you have?"

"Just a coke. I don't wanna get drunk tonight." He also hated the taste of alcohol.

They managed to get through to the bar in the back after a long time of maneuvering through an extremely diverse crowd. Dan saw men in fishnet shirts and shorts so short that they were basically underwear. He saw people of all genders with extravagant makeup looks and skirts and twirled up in circles when they spun. Dan saw people of all shapes and sizes and colors. 

They got to the bar and Dan could barely hear Phil over the booming music. He couldn't identify the song, but he definitely dug it. It had such a strange synthetic beat and the singer must've been from somewhere in England with their clear accent. Their style reminded him somewhat of Prince if you mixed Prince with Bowie. And added a lot of keyboard effects.

"Ok, Dan, heres your coke. I took a sip to make sure it didn't have any alcohol or anything, the coast is clear. And Anthony, you're gin and tonic." Phil said, passing around the drinks and taking one for himself. They hadn't been ID'd, and even though Anthony had promised that they would't, Dan was half expecting it from how much younger they looked compared to anyone in the crowd. Even if they weren't actually older, they all looked to used to this. Like they came here every weekend. Dan figured that he stuck out like a sore thumb. Before he could get too self-conscious though, Phil took the shot he'd ordered and took Dan by the hand, pulling him into the crowd of people dancing.

He started dancing to the music. Not like dancing at a high school party, just boping your head, or anything. He moved his whole body in flowy movement, completely lost in the music with everyone else. Dan had no clue what to do other that stand there stalk still and look back to Anthony or guidance. Sadly, Anthony just laughed at him and shouted "Just go for it!". Or at least Dan figured he'd said that from reading his lips, but he honestly couldn't hear over the loud thump of the beat and of everyone stomping along on the dance floor.

He was yanked away from replying when Phil took his hand again and twirled him in a circle, trying to get him to move.

"Come on, dance! No one's gonna care if you look weird here!" Phil had to say it close to Dans ear for him to hear.

So, with his heart thumping much louder than any of the music, and took a swig of his coca cola and signaled for Anthony to step over and hold it for him.

Once he had nothing in his hands, Dan started dancing with Phil. Well, he didn't know if it could be considered dancing or with Phil, since they were quite far apart, with just one of Dans hands in Phil's. And also, his dancing was very strange.

At first he just tried mirroring Phil, but looking at him for too long, with sweat collecting on his forehead and his eyes closed, lost in the music and the moment, Dan felt such a pang in his heart of "I love him" that he had to look away and got dizzy for a moment. So then he started making things up as he went and let Phil sort of lead him through his touch.

He'd twirl Dan or show him when to get low to the ground or when to flow with the music. He'd grab his shoulders, his arms, his hands, his sides to guid him through the song. Eventually Dan just lost his mind to the euphoria of the moment and let himself dance.

He looked at Phil and realized that his smile must've been similarly as full. He was letting go. Not of Phil's hand - God no - but in the metaphorical way. And Dan rarely let go, especially in the metaphorical way.

Dan thought to himself that he must look pretty ridiculous. Just flailing about, having no clue what he was doing. He wanted to open his eyes and see if that was what everyone else was doing, but first he realized that he didn't remember when he'd closed them, and then he'd realized he probably shouldn't open them. As long as he was still holding Phil's hand, he'd be fine.

Dan had completely lost track of time when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around or see Anthony, who was waving him over to follow him. Dan left Phil on the dance floor for a moment and followed Anthony to the bar, where the music was slightly quieter.

"Can you watch my drink? I wanna dance."

Dan was already tired and felt sweat creating ringlets in his hair.

"Yeah, of course. I don't think I could dance anymore if you hadn't stopped me anyways."

"Thanks dude."

Anthony put his glass down and went off with Phil, who noticed the change in friends and started singing along to the repetitive music, being more outgoing now that it was Anthony and not Dan there with him. Dan just smiled and got up on a stool at the bar.

And suddenly he was alone. At least mostly. There were some people sitting at the bar a few stools down, but most people were up and dancing and moving and grinding on each other. Dan half wished he had the confidence to do that and half figured that even if he did he wouldn't be able to survive it all. All of the emotions of being human. Dan struggles already without being an outgoing person. He had no idea what he'd do if he actually had to act like a normal human and do normal human things. Like have multiple friends. He'd probably implode.

Dan just sat at the bar and, because he had nothing else to do, he started contemplating things. He remembered when Phil had told him that he only ever thought existential thoughts and should stop. But Dan wasn't really sure how to stop a train of thought other than distractions. Distractions that usually included Phil. But Phil was also usually what the train of thought was made up of. You can see how this would get complicated.

Dan turned to see what Anthony and Phil were doing now.

They weren't there.

Dan looked again.

They weren't there.

He blinked.

They weren't there.

He looked around.

They weren't there.

He started panicking.

They still weren't there.

Dan had no idea where Phil or Anthony had gone, but now everything looked ten times scarier without them there. The lights were too dim and the spotlights were moving too quickly over the crowd of hot moving bodies. And they were moving. Everyone was moving too quickly and their movements were echoing in space and Dan figured that maybe he should sit down. But there was really no where to sit, so instead he started pushing his way through the crowd to find Phil.

Goddamn, why did his life always follow in the cycle of either being with Phil, or looking for Phil. And why was everyone here terrifying all of a sudden. And why were their eyes looking everywhere. And why was Dan here? He couldn't remember exactly why he'd agreed to go but he felt like he was going to pass out any moment.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued (probably soon)


	22. Not As Okay As I Seem Pt. 2

I'm Not Okay (I Promise) - My Chemical Romance

_"I'm okay"_

* * *

 

The lights flashing through the crowd were becoming debilitating. Dan wasn't sure how much longer he could keep up this whole consciousness thing. His head was throbbing and he wanted to make everything stop. The colors - the blue purple red and white color scheme that seemed to be constantly showing itself at him. The noises. At some point Come On Eileen had started playing and everyone was singing along, most being horribly off key. He could feel the stomping feet shaking the ground under him. He felt as if nothing were holding him up. Perspiration was collecting on his forehead and Dan was sure the air was getting thicker. Had it gotten more humid in here? Was that possible?

The hand that suddenly grabbed hold of his arm didn't do much to help his panic. Dan flinched bad, pulling his arm away as an instinct.

"Whoa whoa whoa, I'm just trying to help you out, you look kinda pale." Some guy was towering over Dan. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, maybe older, maybe younger. The first thing Dan took notice of was his comparatively modest dressing. He wore a partially mesh crop top, but other  than that, just normal jeans and some glitter on his face. Though, to be fair, the glitter could've come from bumping into anyone else at the club. Dan was sure he must've had glitter on his face by now just from being in such close proximity to some people who looked like they'd taken baths in it.

"I.... W-who are y-you?" Dan tried to sound like he wasn't an eighteen year old boy, fresh out of high school, but failed miserably.

"My names Eric, and you look like you should probably sit down." Eric looked like he almost just put his hand on Dan's shoulder again, but refrained. Dan appreciated it, but honestly felt like he was seeing double. And like everything was moving too quickly. Or too slowly. He wasn't sure. "Theres a couch and shit over in the back, I can show you there if you want?" Whatever part of Dan's brain usually advised him against letting older strangers in clubs lead you to the back where there was a couch when he wasn't thinking straight was clearly turned off at the moment because Dan just nodded and let Eric place a hand on his shoulder and lead him through the crowd.

To give Dan some credit, Eric had seemed like a genuinely good person and got Dan a glass of water (Which he proved wasn't poisoned by taking a generous swig) once he was situated on the couch. There were actually a few soft, worn down couches in the corner in the back, and only one other person was there, but he seemed content with ignoring Dan and Eric and continuing to smoke whatever he was smoking.

Once Dan had finished the water (which he was hesitant to drink at first, but he'd seen Eric order it and bring it straight to Dan without interfering, and it tasted normal, and he suddenly felt extremely dehydrated) he started feeling slightly more calm. Still freaking out, and he wasn't sure if the tears on his face were from before or if he was still crying, but slightly more calm. With the music further away and water in his system, he felt like he could maybe start breathing again.

Eric sat down next to him.

"How old are you, kid?" He asked casually. Dan took a deep breath and let his head fall slightly.

"E-eighteen." He could hear the bashfulness in his voice.

"Yeah, I figured you were underage. What's your name?"

"D-dan."

"Well, Dan, did you come here with anyone?"

"Y-eah. M-my friend, a-and my..." Dan wasn't quite sure how to introduce Phil. Normally he'd just say friend, but he wasn't at school right now, or in town at all. This Eric guy is probably never gonna talk to him again. He can be totally honest. But he wouldn't even know where to begin. "P-phil."

"Your... Phil?"

"Yes, m-my Phil."

"Ok, well where are they? I could go get them and tell them you... I mean it seems like you were having a panic attack. or overstimulation or something, that happens to my brother all the time when he comes to places like this. With the people, and music, and lights and everything."

Dan wasn't really sure what that was, but he tried to think of where Phil and Anthony had gone. His mind stopped short. He had no idea.

Fuck.

He had no idea where Phil was. He currently couldn't find it in him to give a damn about where Anthony was, but he had  _no clue_  where Phil was.

God, Phil was just so...  _infuriating_! Where did he fucking go? Why would he just leave Dan there? He  _knew_  that Dan had problems with being around so many people. Why the  _fuck_  would he just walk away?

Anger washed over Dan. One of his many emotions, and one of his many strong ones. Dan didn't just have feelings, he breathed them in. He let them course through him as sure as the blood in his veins. He lived them. And he had absolutely no idea how to control them. And right now, he was feeling nothing but anger. Indigent anger.

"You know what? Thanks for the drink, and thanks for helping me out, but I think I've got it from here, Eric. I'm sure I'll find Anthony and Phil, sorry to interrupt your night."

And with that, Dan put down his empty glass on the flood beside the couch and abruptly stood up, and walked away.

Fuck this. Fuck all of this. Why did he always let Phil walk all over him? He was sick of it. He didn't want to just go with everything that Phil said.

Dan knew he was being ridiculous. Every other week he'd have a revelation that he hated how he went along with anything Phil did, but really it all came down to being his own fault. Phil didn't usually push too much for Dan to do things he wasn't comfortable with, Dan just ended up doing them. Because the universe was pitted against him. Because the universe had put Phil right in his very neighborhood and hadn't interfered when it started to ruin all of the will power he'd been building up through the years. Because the universe basically ruined his life with the handsome blue eyes, pale skin, and unpredictable, idiosyncratic boy next door.

But being mad at Phil was a lot easier than being mad at the universe.

So with The Kinks (Lola, not a bad song, if you asked Dan) playing from the speakers and Dan's mind finally cleared, he charged through the dance floor, pushing his way to the front door. The sound of stomping feet and music was muffled by the New York air and the walls around the club. Dan took in a deep breath of fresh air and instantly felt better. And colder. And still very very mad. Mad at how Phil always had the upper hand, even though he never knew it. Mad at how Phil never knew. Mad at how he never would. Mad at the universe, but especially mad at Phil.

He balled his hands in fists and turned to the bouncer.

"H-have you b-by any chance s-seen a young m-man, t-tall, blue eyes, p-pale, black h-hair? He m-might've been w-with another guy, s-similar height, c-curly brown hair, b-brown eyes, t-tan?"

The tall man looked intimidating - as bouncers were supposed to - in his sleek black suit with his wide frame and arms crossed.

"Sure thing, wide-eyes. They left that way not too long ago. Seemed pretty drunk, the taller one more than the other." Dan didn't appreciate the new nickname all too much, but at least it wasn't offensive like most of the ones he would get at school.

"T-thanks."

The taller one. Anthony.

Dan started off in the direction the man had pointed, looking through every store window and staring at anyone who passed him with a determination that abolished the anxiety of catching anyones eye. He was sure he looked half-insane as he flew through the crowded side walk. He tried not to think about it.

It only took about half a minute of speed walking to find his friends. They were leaning against the brick wall of a closed coffee shop, smoking.

"Where t-the hell d-did you guys go?" Dan had long since wiped the tears out of his eyes but he felt them coming back.

"I wanted to go outside for a smoke and Anthony, as it turns out, is a light weight and just started stumbling in this direction, so I followed." Phil explained half-heartedly. Dan wanted to punch the wall.

"I had to ask the bouncer where you guys went."

"Congrats."

"Come on, Phil, you know how much it bothers me to talk to strangers like that."

"Sorry, Dan. Want a drag?" Phil held his cigarette out to Dan.

"No." Dan wasn't really sure how to continue. Anthony was looking back and forth between him and Phil, as if something was about to happen. Dan grabbed Phils shirt collar and dragged him into the space between the coffee shop and whatever other establishment was beside it. A shallow alleyway that took them from blocking the side walk. Anthony followed.

"He called me 'wide-eyes'."

"Who did?"

"The bouncer."

"Well you're eyes  _are_  pretty big Dan. Especially when you're mad. And when you're really happy." Phil slurred his words slightly. He didn't sound too drunk, maybe just a little past tipsy. "You don't seem that happy right now though." Well he got that part right.

Phil stumbled ever so slightly and put his hand on Dan's waist, lightly tugging him forward.

"I like your eyes though. They're pretty." Phil smiled and Dan almost wanted to let go of how annoyed he was. But controlling his emotions was never Dan's strong suit.

"Get off me Phil." He pushed Phil away and his hand fell from Dans side. The little electricity that had flared up there - as it did every time Phil touched him - faded, and Dan almost grabbed Phil's hand again and put it back. He was, however, painfully aware of Anthony's slightly drunken presence.

"Whats wrong?" Phil asked, sounding like he actually had no idea why Dan might be mad. Dan was indignant. Phil had left him alone in a club in the city and he had  _the fucking nerve_  to ask what was wrong? God, he  _always_  did this! He always fucked up and then acted as if he hadn't actually done anything. But he always did shit that messed with Dan. All the goddamn time. He'd draw attention to them in public, he'd make Dan drive him places, he'd abandon him in a club. And he'd kiss Dan, which just sent his life down a spiral every time.

And somewhere deep in his mind Dan knew this wasn't Phil's fault and it wasn't the fault of the universe. It all fell on Dan in the end. He never told Phil how he felt about this shit. He never knew how to say no to him, how to tell him not to do something the next time around. He knew that part of it was his fault because he secretly liked this shit.

But it wasn't good for him, and it was easier to be mad at Phil and the goddamn universe than to admit that he was causing his own demise every second that he stayed friends with Phil. Every second that he stayed in love with him.

Dan turned sharply to Anthony.

"You think you could wait for us in the subway where we got here from? I think Phil and I are gonna stay and talk this out a bit." Dan kept his voice level, it only trembling where he'd normally stutter. But he didn't stutter. Anthony proved to be someone Dan was comfortable with in the strangest of times, like right now.

"Yeah, of course. I'll see you guys there." And he was on his way. He seemed to have sobered up a bit in the past few minutes.

Dan waited for him to be gone.

"You know what, Phil, I really don't feel like arguing a lot, but just don't.... don't leave me places like that, ok?"

"No, not ok." Phil replied, matter-of-factly. Dan was slightly taken aback.

"W-what?" He could feel tears coming back to his eyes.

"Come on Dan! I know you're mad, so be mad. Argue!" Phil demanded, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

"I'm not mad." Dan's voice was tightly strung, like a guitar thats strings were about to snap.

"Ok, fine." Phil leaned against the wall of a dirty brick building, crossing his arms and looking at Dan expectantly. "Then I guess I don't know you as well as I thought I did." He shrugged.

"Oh, don't you give me that shit.  _You know me_. And you  _knew_  that I'd be anxious if you left me alone at the bar, and you still went off with that idiot!" He realized he was slipping. Starting to shout. He knew Anthony wasn't an idiot, too, and he would've felt bad for misdirecting his anger, but at the moment he just couldn't find it in him to care.

Phil smiled.

"Not an idiot. Also, learn to live a little, Dan. Take some risks." He said, pushing himself off the wall and stepping towards Dan.

Now he was ready to shout.

"What does that even mean?!? Learn to live a little? Incase you haven't noticed, I'm alive! I'm alive and I have fucking feelings! Stop acting like I don't! And don't hit me with that fucking risks bullshit!" Dan felt tears starting to burn at the edges his eyes, as always, and he stepped closer to Phil. "You're always saying that, everyones always saying that, and its bullshit! I'm more of a risk taker than both of you combined! I take so many risks all the fucking time! I'm taking a risk every time we come to the city! I'm taking a risk every time I let you get close to me in public! I took the biggest fucking risk in the world when we were thirteen and you kissed me and I kissed you back!" He was full on crying now. Dan weakly punched Phil chest, but it didn't do much. Phil didn't waver. He just looked at Dan with a stoic kind of expression, waiting for him to keep talking. "I'm taking a risk every time I hang out with you! And people always say shit like 'you're only interesting because you're friends with Phil' or 'Phil made you interesting'. No, Phil, that's not what happened. I wasn't lackluster before I met you or anything. You didn't make me interesting, you made me  _stupid._  Before I knew you I never would've been stupid enough to do this kind of shit, to take these kinds of risks! So fuck you! Fuck you, Phil Lester, I hate you!" He lamely punched and hit Phil's chest until he folded into him and just cried, winding his arms around his neck, holding himself up like it meant the world.

Phil just held Dan in return and let him cry, leaning his back against the building once more.

"Anything else?"

"I hate that I can't leave, Phil." Dan spoke up again, more quietly this time, talking through the choked back sobs. "Everything I said is true, but I still can't walk away from you. Everything except for the hate part, I guess. Sometimes I know that you're using me and I just let you." His voice was cracking but the anger was still evident. He felt Phil nod sympathetically.

"And I wish you felt the same way I feel." Dan whispered, his voice muffled by Phil's shirt. There was no way that Phil knew what he was talking about and he probably hadn't even heard him that time, but he just nodded again either way. Because even when Phil didn't understand what Dan was saying, he still understood Dan.

 


End file.
